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Both candidates pull punches at the end. Brian Williams poses the question: Is there a fundamental question the other must answer to voters?
Obama takes the opportunity to return Hillary’s praise from last debate—“she would be worthy as a nominee”—and declines to point out any of her shortcomings.
Clinton likewise discusses her own struggle to improve people’s lives, citing her efforts on universal health care, and earns applause with her assertion that her nomination would be a “sea change” for America.
Both safe answers. But both candidates knew better than to take the bait and go after each other. Not the note you want to end on in what could be the last debate of the primary.
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Obama’s old stammer is coming back. When Russert brings up Obama’s promise to accept public funds during the general election, Obama denies that’s what he said.
“Tim, I’m not yet the nominee. When I’m the nominee—if I’m the nominee,” I’ll sit down and figure out whether to take public funds.
He stammers again when trying to qualify his denunciation of Louis Farrakhan’s expression of support for him. “I can’t say to someone that I think he can’t say that I’m a good guy,” Obama says. He denounces Farrakhan’s remarks about Jews, but seems uncomfortable insulting Farrakhan on national television.
Clinton sees an opening and tries to nail him on it. There’s a difference, Clinton says, between “denouncing” Farrakhan and “rejecting” his support. (As Clinton rejected donations from the Independence Party in New York.) But, in fact, she gives him an opening here to poke fun at her parsing. If Hillary thinks there’s a difference between reject and denounce, Obama says, and she wants him to do both, then he will “reject and denounce” Farrakhan’s remarks. Laughs, applause, commercial break.
Now that is a reversal.
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A hawk-eyed reader observes: Are Obama and Russert wearing the same tie?
If so, does it mean Russert has Obamamania?
Maybe SNL was right!
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The Iraq exchange is pretty boilerplate, with Hillary saying that Obama’s opposition to the war in 2003 wasn’t all that impressive, that he has since said he didn’t know how he would have voted on the war authorization, and that they have voted identically on the war in the Senate.
So, devil’s advocate here: If they have voted exactly the same on Iraq, why does it matter that she has more “experience”?
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Tim Russert pulls a Tim Russert and tries to corner Hillary on NAFTA, asking if she’ll terminate the agreement in the first six months of her presidency. She wriggles around a little bit and basically says that, no, she wouldn’t pull out of it, but she would use the threat of pulling out as leverage to renegotiate it.
Obama, in a nutshell: What she said. But I never said I liked it!
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Clinton lands a good answer on job creation. Russert mentions a promise she made in 2000 that New York would gain 200,000 jobs. The state ended up losing 30,000 jobs. Now she’s promising to create 5 million jobs across the country. How can we believe her this time? Russert asks.
Without missing a beat, Clinton responds: “In 2000, I thought Al Gore was going to be president."
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Clinton gets snippy at the moderators for, she claims, always asking her to answer questions first: “We should ask Barack Obama if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.” Wowza!
It's a nice play on the media-hates-Hillary narrative, although you wonder how many people picked up on it.
So she doesn't like the order of the questioning. “But I’m happy to answer it,” she says. Smile.
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The first question is about intraparty tribal warfare, but we’re already talking about the nuances of health-care plans! What’s going on?
The foundation of Clinton’s argument is that by not pursuing universal health care, Obama undermines a foundational Democratic value. Clinton points out, as she has before, that Obama’s plan doesn’t offer universal health care but does require a mandate for children. Why not expand it to everyone?
Obama is forced to defend a difficult nuance: He says he wants universal care, but his plan doesn’t provide it. “Every expert has said that anyone who wants health care under my plan will be able to obtain it,” he says.
Also important: Did Obama just say “Massatusetts”? Twice?
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Welcome to Cleveland. Introductory observations:
- Has this campaign made Brian Williams go gray?
- They’re all sitting around the same table. Are Russert and Obama playing footsie?
- A friend in the room (who has been reading way too many blogs) characterizes Hillary’s posture as “cat-like, poised to pounce.” Gone is the Star Trek uniform, replaced by a jacket that looks like a well-tailored welcome mat.
On with the show!
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In response to a New York Times article alleging that morale is low in Hillaryland, the campaign submitted a letter to the Times signed by 503 supporters and staffers, reassuring the world that they “are working tirelessly each and every day and night, because we believe in Hillary.” In other words, morale is high. (Read the full letter here.)
The Times refused to print the letter, calling it a “press release.”
Not to pile on here, but put yourself in the shoes of a disaffected Clinton staffer (assuming they exist). A letter is circulating the campaign office. Lots of people are signing it. You can be darn well sure your colleagues will be scanning the list of signatories. Would anyone in his right mind not put his name at the bottom?
Seems to me that, while I know many Clinton staffers are committed to the campaign, this is just a thinly disguised—and highly public—loyalty oath.
Update 8:26 p.m.: A friend sagely points out: They could get 503 staffers to sign this, but not one swearing they didn't leak the Obama photo? Also, Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said they had "over 700 people on staff." Does that mean 197 people don't believe Hillary "will make the best President of the United States"?
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Mike Huckabee, who wants you to know he’s still in the race, has challenged John McCain to a debate.
Here's something for them to debate. Be it resolved that:
994 (McCain's current delegate count) + 88 (Ohio) + 140 (Texas) + 20 (Rhode Island) + 17 (Vermont) > 1,191 (the number of delegates necessary to win the nomination)
Similarly:
239 (Huckabee’s current delegate count) + 88 (Ohio) + 140 (Texas) + 20 (Rhode Island) + 17 (Vermont) + 39 (Mississippi) + 9 (Virgin Islands) + 74 (Pennsylvania) + 57 (Indiana) + 69 (North Carolina) + 20 (Hawaii) + 45 (Kentucky) + 30 (Oregon) + 32 (Idaho) + 32 (New Mexico) + 27 (South Dakota) + 33 (Nebraska) < 1,191
Miracles, indeed.
Delegate numbers lifted from CNN and the New York Times.
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Part three of the Clinton vs. Obama debate-a-thon airs tonight (9 p.m., MSNBC), and it’s being billed as the last, final, ultimate one-on-one showdown ever, forever … until Hillary steamrolls Obama in Ohio, and we do it all over again. But the past week has not been kind to Clinton, what with Obama closing the gap in Texas, both sides breaking even in the NAFTA debate, and her “major” foreign-policy speech getting eclipsed by the dress mess. But the debate stage is still her turf, making the drama behind tonight’s face-off slightly less contrived than usual. Here are a few things to look for as you struggle to avoid clicking over to American Idol:
Which Hillary? Clinton has been positively schizophrenic recently, sounding defeated at one moment, angrily brandishing oppo mailers the next, and offering stately disquisitions on foreign affairs for good measure. Which Hillary will we see tonight? If recent history is any indicator, all three! She will probably go easy on the canned lines, however: Last week’s “Xerox” quip bombed, and her policy-based attacks have been more effective, anyway.
The new front-runner. Obama turned in a solid performance at last Thursday’s debate, arguing Hillary to a draw. But a flubbed answer or ill-advised put-down can undo everything. Look for Obama to stick with last week’s formula: shrug off attacks as petty, beat back Clinton’s “experience” case, and insist that inspiration is more important than bullet points.
Negative Nancies. Over the weekend, Hillary held up an Obama mailer attacking her health-care plan and record on NAFTA and challenged him to “meet me in Ohio.” Well, here they are. In most debates, the candidates leave their harshest words at the door. But this could be Clinton’s last chance to ding Obama for resorting to negative attacks while claiming to represent a new kind of politics. Obama has plenty of ammo in that clip, too, the Wajir photo being the freshest (if not the most incriminating) example.
Trade pandering. Nowhere are the negative effects of NAFTA more palpable than Ohio, where manufacturing jobs have dropped steeply. As a result, Obama and Clinton have spent recent weeks flogging each other over trade, each claiming that the other has said positive things about NAFTA. Both are sort of right, which makes the argument as close to a stalemate as can be—and therefore likely to generate plenty of heat. The Tim Russert Quote Machine will no doubt be in top form. As for Ohio-targeting, Clinton can relax slightly. She retains a lead in Ohio polls, where demographics—more rural whites, fewer urban blacks—skew to her benefit.
Network tensions: When MSNBC’s David Shuster suggested that the Clinton campaign was “pimping out” Chelsea Clinton, the campaign threatened to boycott all future NBC debates. They later reneged (for a campaign that’s pushing for more debates, it doesn’t make sense to skip one), but residual tensions could flare up, especially if they bring up the media’s treatment of the candidates.
Check back at 9 p.m. for a live blog of the debate. And maybe a little American Idol.
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That was fast. In a mere four hours, an insult was hurled, an apology offered, and an acceptance announced. That could well be a record for presidential campaigns.
At an event in Cincinnati, talk-radio host Bill Cunningham gave a speech endorsing John McCain in which he referred three times to “Barack Hussein Obama.”
Before the story could make the rounds, McCain’s people said they “do not agree” with Cunningham’s statement. “I never met Mr. Cunningham,” McCain said, “but I will make sure nothing like that ever happens again.”
Obama’s camp was equally quick with an acceptance. “We appreciate Senator McCain’s remarks,” said spokesman Bill Burton in a statement. “It is a sign that if there is a McCain-Obama general election, it can be intensely competitive but the candidates will attempt to keep it respectful and focused on issues.”
How very … sane. Compare that with the serial drama that followed the remarks of Bill Shaheen, Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign co-chair, when he brought up Obama’s past drug use in an interview. (The Clinton campaign took responsibility for the remarks and accepted Shaheen’s resignation, but only after the story dominated the news cycle—and after Mark Penn repeated the word cocaine a couple more times.) Something similar happened when BET founder Bob Johnson alluded to Obama's drug use. Johnson then claimed he had been talking about Obama’s community organizing—an absurd statement that only deepened the insult. Finally, Johnson apologized for real, but the damage had been done. Obama ended up scoring points (and raising cash) because of the flap.
This time around, McCain was smart to clear the air quickly, seeing as umbrage is the new black. Had he dawdled, Obama could easily have turned this into another “Wajir dress” incident, denouncing his opponent’s skeevy tactics and simultaneously raking in the moolah. Instead, Obama let McCain off the hook. Perhaps he figured it was too early for a roll in the mud—there will be plenty of time for that. Or, more likely, he realized it would come off as a stunt, à la Hillary’s “Meet me in Ohio.” You can only cry umbrage so many times before people run out of sympathy.
If this precedent is any sign, perhaps a McCain-Obama matchup would be fairly tame. John McCain experienced dirty campaign tactics firsthand in 2000, when charges that he fathered a black child helped end his candidacy in South Carolina. Likewise, the persistence of e-mails calling Obama a Muslim and questioning his patriotism have made Obama’s campaign sensitive to and disdainful of slurs. Both candidates paint themselves as reformers who want to change the tone (Obama) and means (McCain) of campaigning. Here’s their chance.
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It’s probably too late for this publication—we who brought you the Encyclopedia Baracktannica—to start condemning others for abusive permutations of Barack Obama’s name. There is one word, however, that you will never find in our Encyclopedia, no matter how many editions it goes through: Omentum.
Long before this word got tossed around the blogosphere and casually dropped on Sunday morning shows, it referred to “[a] sheet of fat … attached to the bottom edge of the stomach,” as defined on MedicineNet.com. This was first brought to our attention by alert reader Dr. James Peykanu of Morgantown, W.Va., an Obama supporter who implored us not to associate the word with his candidate. Peykanu describes the omentum in detail:
The Omentum (there are two, the greater and lesser) is a big membrane in the belly that serves as the root by which the blood to the intestines flows. Incidentally, in most people, it is HEAVILY impregnated with fat and is a pretty disgusting thing to look at or surgically manipulate, no matter how great a function the thing serves (it is very useful in walling off infections, for example).
Sadly, the best picture we can find features Oprah—an Obama supporter—holding one under the headline “The Biology of Blubber.”
Perhaps Obama’s detractors should latch onto the analogy. As Oprah tells us, “A healthy omentum, like the one Oprah's holding, should be ‘lacy, like stockings. …The omentum, you'll notice, is transparent and thin.’”