Hand-To-Hand Combat in Pennsylvania by Peggy Simpson
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| Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Some rights reserved. |
April 17, 2008
You could look at the bruising Wednesday night debate between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as a wake-up call about the accusations that will lie ahead in the general election, no matter who wins the Democratic nomination. Most analysts concluded that Obama took the most body blows and that he wasn't as swift on his feet with answers as expected.
Some of the blows came from Clinton, some from the ABC questioners in this last debate match before next Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary. Old and not-so-old controversies were rehashed: Obama and Preacher Wright; Obama's statement about Pennsylvania voters being bitter about job losses prompting them to "cling to" religion and guns. Clinton had said the "bitter" remarks showed he didn't understand blue-collar voters and was an elitist.
Obama took another stab at rephrasing what he meant: when incomes go down, jobs disappear, gas prices skyrocket and grass roots voters don't think Washington is listening to them. “Then, politically, they end up focusing on those things that are constant, like religion,” he said. “They end up feeling 'this is a place where I can find some refuge. This is something that I can count on.'"
He tried to put this in his larger campaign context of change: "Yes, people are frustrated and angry about it, but what we're seeing in this election is the opportunity to break through that frustration. And that's what our campaign has been about."
Clinton has re-positioned her own campaign message, however, and has her own message of hope. In talking to Pennsylvania voters, she finds that "despite whatever frustration anyone has with our government, people are resilient, they are positive, and they're ready for leadership again that will summon them to something greater than themselves."
She also took advantage of the opportunities to weigh in again about Obama's now-retired pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, this time managing to work in references to the church's award to the Rev. Louis Farrakhan and to a church bulletin item on the Palestinian Hamas party, both likely to alarm some parts of the Democratic base.
A potentially new controversy made its way into the debate, complements of ABC: Obama's acquaintance with a former Weather Underground figure, William Ayers. He said Ayers' "detestable" actions 40 years ago occurred when he was 8 years old and that "the American people are smarter than" thinking Ayers' views reflect his own.
At the heart of these kinds of Obama attacks are attempts to paint him as unpatriotic, which if they stuck could make him unelectable. He defended himself well, and Clinton, when pushed, said she thought he would be elected if nominated. "Yes, yes, yes," she said after repeated attempts by ABC questioners to get her to go on record on this.
Clinton got put on the defensive, too, although less often. She was asked about an ABC poll showing 6 of 10 voters didn't trust her. There were more questions about her Bosnia gaffe. And there was Obama's bizarre resurrection of a Clinton snafu from the 1990s that earned her the elitist label, not one of the folks, for defending her choice to work fulltime rather than staying home and baking cookies.
Policy wonks looked at the issues discussed and found much that might open either Obama or Clinton to attacks in the fall campaign.
Most lethal might be the issue of taxes. Both pledged they would not raise taxes on the middle class, which they defined as people earning less than $200,000 or $250,000. Some critics said that meant they wouldn't have a chance of financing their expensive domestic programs such as health care reform.
Clinton also engaged Obama in a sharp colloquy about his intention to raise the cap on Social Security payroll taxes, now fixed at $97,000. He said millionaires should pay payroll taxes on all they make; she said raising that cap would ensnare educators and cops, among others.
You could see the Republican attack teams rejoicing.
Senator John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, already had predicted that Obama's "bitterness" remarks would be "a killer issue" for the fall.
Maybe. But clearly, the hand-to-hand combat of this last debate between Obama and Clinton should serve to toughen both of them. It also gave Clinton an opening to address the perception that she has so much baggage, she's unelectable. Nope, she said, that just seasoned her for the battle ahead. "I've been in this arena for a long time. I have a lot of baggage—and everybody has rummaged through it for years."
That got her a rare laugh.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are running even in Pennsylvania in a Zogby poll conducted April 15-16. Clinton leads Obama 45 percent to 44 percent with a 4.1 percent margin of error. Zogby reports a "huge" gender gap with Obama leading Clinton among men voters by 15 points and Clinton having the same margin over Obama among women voters. The poll also says that "Pennsylvanians by a two to one margin are more likely to agree with supporters of Obama that voters in Pennsylvania are bitter about their economic situation than with Clinton and critics of Obama that he is an elitist who does not understand working people."
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