Debates: 20 Down, None to Go?

Will they or won’t they? Fight, that is. That’s what many of us were wondering about the Clinton Obama debate last night in Cleveland. After last debate’s love-fest turned into a decidedly mean spirited week of campaign charges and counter charges, you might have expected that the plot would thicken when they were actually in the same room.

Not so much.

Admittedly, it’s more difficult to bash someone when they’re sitting two feet from you at the same table, but since there’s not much to debate on the issues (who hates NAFTA more? Me! No, Me! My health care plan’s mandate is more comprehensive than yours! and so on) maybe we get some entertainment value out of than slapping each other around a little bit.

Mostly, Hillary just managed to beat herself up. Just before she tried to sell us on the fact that she’s “a fighter” who’s tough enough to tackle special interests to deliver health care for all, she complained that she’s being treated unfairly by the media, who she accused of genuflecting before His Hopefulness.

“Can I just point out that in the last several debates,” Clinton said, channeling her inner Jan Brady. “I seem to get the first question all the time. And I don't mind. I -- you know, I'll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious, and if anybody saw "Saturday Night Live," you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow.”

(Video of this and the Saturday Night Live skit she referenced are below.)

After she stood by her earlier accusations that Obama had misrepresented her positions in campaign literature, he essentially reminded her of the harsh and enduring reality embodied by the famous Finley Peter Dunne quip that “politics ain’t beanbag.” Then Obama ratched it up a notch and used the W-word.

“We haven't whined about it because I understand that's the nature of these campaigns, but to suggest somehow that our mailing is somehow different from the kinds of approaches that Senator Clinton has taken throughout this campaign I think is simply not accurate.”

Increasingly desperate as the evening progressed, Hillary pounced after Obama tried to confront the issues raised by the unwanted endorsement he recently received from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who, among other claims to fame, has made anti-Semitic comments.

Obama said he has denounced Farrakhan, but that wasn’t good enough for Clinton.
Napoleon once said “never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake,” which is what Hillary should have done as Obama squirmed with his rather tepid attempt to distance himself from Farrakhan, continuously referring to him as “Minister Farrakhan,” as Nation of Islam members do. At that moment, there were probably more than a few guys in Texas picturing Obama in a bow tie and one of those angry black man hats, but she just couldn’t stop herself.

“I'm just saying that you asked specifically if he would reject it,” she said, “and there's a difference between denouncing and rejecting.”
She’s accused Obama of being all talk and no action, offering words, not solutions. He turned this around her quickly showing how skillful use of words can deflate a sanctimonious attack.

“I have to say I don't see a difference between denouncing and rejecting,” Obama said. “There's no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it. But if the word "reject" Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word "denounce," then I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.

I call your verb and raise you two.

Hillary also blew her chance to dismiss the controversy over the picture supposedly sent to the Drudge report by her campaign staff of Obama in local African clothing when he visited Kenya. The whole affair threw her campaign off balance off a whole day and this was her opportunity to rise above it.

She should have said something like “I think he looks good in that picture” and moved on. Instead, she let herself get dragged into a discussion of campaign tactics and tacitly accepting the premise that anything that would link Obama to being foreign or God forbid a Muslim (he’s not) is only a negative if you’re a bigot.

Nothing Hillary Clinton is doing is working. Before anyone actually voted, her campaign ran like a Swiss watch. Now it appears perilously close to spinning out of control. Last night’s debate performance was solid, but probably didn’t give anyone a reason to change their minds.

It’s Not Plagiarism, It’s an Homage, Part 2: Hillary Rips off Bill Clinton & John Edwards

“Hello Kettle? It’s Pot. You’re black.”

In the Texas debate, minutes after she condemned Barack Obama for copying part of a speech made originally by his friend and supporter, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Hillary Clinton borrowed lines from her husband and former rival candidate John Edwards to make her closing statement.

"If your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words,” she said.

But her campaign is about solutions, not words, so apparently it’s cool if she appropriates good words from other people.


Hillary Clinton, February 21, 2008: “The hits I’ve taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country.”

Bill Clinton, 1992: “The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits the people of this state and this country have been taking for a long time.”

Hillary Clinton, February 21, 2008: “Whatever happens, we’re going to be fine. You know, we have strong support from our families and our friends. I just hope that we’ll be able to say the same thing about the American people, and that’s what this election should be about.”

John Edwards, October 30, 2007, Democratic candidates’ debate: "As a matter of fact, it's not about any of us. The truth is, when this election is over, I'm going to be fine. Senator Clinton is going to be fine. Senator Obama's going to be fine. Will America be fine? "-

Maybe Obama can Xerox a quip to call attention to that renewable resource that seems inexorably intertwined with politics—hypocrisy.

You can just imagine John Edwards, if he can stand to watch one of these debates at this point, saying, “Great! First she rips off my health care reform plan, now she’s giving my stump speech.”

Perhaps all the good rhetoric has already been written so we’re condemned to listening to the same speeches and talking points for the rest of eternity. Maybe when a primary aspect of your daily routine is to blather endlessly and associate with others who do likewise, you just absorb speech patterns by osmosis.

She was standing right next to John Edwards when he delivered the lines she later commandeered. She was probably nearby when Bill Clinton said the words that were the other part of her moment of eloquence the other night.

If it were a spontaneous statement, then it might be more forgivable, but it was quite clearly a prepared monologue. Odd that what has now been revealed to be plagiarized was seemingly her most genuine moment. Part of Hillary’s problem has been that she usually can’t manage to fake sincerity as effortlessly as more natural politicians like her husband. She finally manages to pull it off and she gets caught cheating.

If you’re going to steal, why not go for grand theft. Why steal purses when you can embezzle millions? Forget Bill Clinton and John Edwards. How about a rehash of one of FDR’s Fireside chats? What the hell, why not recite the Gettysburg address?

Obama called the scandlette of borrowed words “silly.” Indeed. As Alice in Wonderland might have said, “Sillier and sillier.”

Incidentally, I stole my lead sentence from an episode of “Friends.” If people who want to be President of the United States can’t be bothered to write original material, why the hell should I?

Debates of Debatable Value

Having watched 18 of the 19 democratic debates I am now officially fed up with the entire exercise. They seem to offer an ever diminishing return on the time we invest in watching them. And this from a guy who Tivo’s C-SPAN.

The rules of last night’s edition were an improvement over some previous events. No strict time limits allowed for more substantive responses, but it would be even more informative and certainly provide superior entertainment value if they were allowed to pose questions to each other.

I suspect if you listened on the radio rather than watching on TV you might have had a different sense of what happened. Like Nixon vs. Kennedy in 1960, radio listeners would focus on what was said. TV viewers mix that with their more subtle impression of facial expression and body language. Unfortunately for Hillary, she’s playing the role of Tricky Dick this time and almost everyone watches on TV.

On the merits of the arguments, particularly on health care, Clinton offered a compelling contrast to Obama. She managed to cut through some of the confusing policy wonk fog on her plan’s (and John Edward’s) mandate that everyone buy health insurance and Obama’s decision to make his proposal voluntary. Finally she offered a clever analogy to help illustrate why allowing relatively healthy people to game the system is extremely problematic.

"We would not have a social compact with Social Security and Medicare if everyone did not have to participate," Clinton said. “I want a universal health care plan."

Insurance only works with shared risk. When you’re healthy you pay more into the system than you take out. When you’re sick it’s the other way around.

Obama had his standard answer to this question.

"Senator Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it, and my belief is the reason that people don't have it is not because they don't want it, but because they can't afford it. And so I emphasize reducing costs. Now, there are legitimate arguments for why Senator Clinton and others have called for a mandate, and I'm happy to have that debate. But the notion that I am leaving 15 million people out somehow implies that we are different in our goals of providing coverage to all Americans, and that is simply not true."

Granted the President’s proposal is only the starting point of the debate and the final plan would likely take a different form, this is a critical difference that often gets lost because the distinction can seem esoteric. It’s not and Clinton finally found a way to make the point.

Obama scored some points on the judgment issue again reminding us that he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and Hillary voted for it.

Obama has steadily improved his performance in these exercises. A dozen debates or so ago, he seemed to be afraid of Hillary (I would be too). Now he looks more presidential, perhaps leading you to have more confidence that if he actually met with some of those world leaders from hostile governments that they wouldn’t kick his ass and take his lunch money.

Aside from health care reform, that difficult area of foreign policy seemed like the only other area where the two have a significant divergence in their plans.

Clinton pounced on Obama in the first YouTube debate when he accepted the idea of meeting leaders of countries like Iran and North Korea without preconditions. It seemed like a rookie mistake at the time, but he never backed away from it and the issue flared up again in Austin last night when it was posed in reference to post-Castro Cuba.

"A presidential visit should not be offered,” Clinton said, ”and given without some evidence that it will demonstrate the kind of progress that is in our interest and in the interests of the Cuban people."

Obama said the next President needs to take some risks to restore our battered image overseas.

"I would meet without preconditions,” he said. ”Although Senator Clinton is right that there has to be preparation. It is very important for us to make sure that there was an agenda, and on that agenda was human rights, releasing of political prisoners, opening up the press."

The most likely repeated sound bite fell flat with the people in the live audience. On the recent controversy of Obama using the same lines in a speech as Massachusetts Govern Deval Patrick, Hillary was ready when she got the chance to rub his nose in it.

"If your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That I think is a very simple proposition," Clinton said. "Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox."

And your little dog too!

Having heard this from her speeches lately, Obama was also prepared and managed to deflate the argument.

"The notion that I had plagiarized from somebody who was one of my national co-chairs, who gave me the line and suggested that I use it, I think is silly," Obama said. "And you know, this is where we start getting into silly season in politics, and I think people start getting discouraged about it."

Clinton’s best moment and perhaps Obama’s weakest came at the end when CNN’s Campbell Brown posed a philosophical question.

“You’ve both spent a lot of time talking about leadership, about who’s ready and who has the right judgment to lead if elected president. A leader’s judgment is most tested at times of crisis. I’m wondering if both of you will describe what was the moment that tested you the most, that moment of crisis.”

Admittedly, it’s hard to go fist, but Obama had little to say that, like a fortune cookie or horoscope, would not apply to almost anyone who’s a reasonable responsible adult.

“I wouldn’t point to a single moment,” he said. “But what I look at is the trajectory of my life because, you know, I was raised by a single mom. My father left when I was two, and I was raised by my mother and my grandparents.

“There were rocky periods during my youth, when I made mistakes and was off course. And what was most important, in my life, was learning to take responsibility for my own actions, learning to take responsibility for not only my own actions but how I can bring people together to actually have an impact on the world.”

Clinton, with a deft but understated reference to difficulty posed by her very public marital problems, quickly pivoted and put her own life and ambition in a greater context.

“People often ask me, ‘How do you do it?’” she said. “’How do you keep going?’ And I just have to shake my head in wonderment, because with all of the challenges that I’ve had, they are nothing compared to what I see happening in the lives of Americans every single day.”

She went on with a lengthy tribute to wounded soldiers and the struggles of many people who have it much worse than a millionaire senator with a philandering husband.
Then came the moment that seemed like an acknowledgment of what appears to be an all but doomed campaign.

“No matter what happens in this contest,” she said, “I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored. Whatever happens, we’re going to be fine. You know, we have strong support from our families and our friends. I just hope that we’ll be able to say the same thing about the American people, and that’s what this election should be about.”

Today she’s been forced to say that this was not meant to be a farewell address, but prepared zinger lines notwithstanding, for the most part Clinton looked like she knows that she’s already lost and has opted to do so relatively gracefully.

Tactically, she and her campaign brain trust seem to have rightly concluded that negative attacks aren’t working against the Kevlar coated Obama. No, she’s not angling for Vice President, that’s not going to happen and she’s probably not interested anyway.

Maybe in the end she’s decided to retain that one intangible commodity that politicians often sacrifice in the desperate struggle that precedes the end of a long but losing campaign. Dignity.