Candidates Turn Up Volume

Thursday, September 13, 2007

REACTION TO PETRAEUS

Candidates Turn Up Volume

The Iraq status report offered by Gen. David Petraeus on Monday and Tuesday continued to reverberate yesterday, with Democratic presidential candidates demanding a swifter exit from Iraq than the Bush administration is planning. And the campaign battle lines hardened, with Republicans attacking Democrats for their response to the Petraeus report.

Barack Obama, in an address in Iowa, said "there is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was." The senator from Illinois unveiled what the campaign billed as a "comprehensive plan to turn the page" that featured an immediate start to troop withdrawal, at the pace of one or two brigades per month, to be completed by the end of 2008.

John Edwards attacked Obama for that approach, saying it was too slow and "could essentially mimic the president's own plans to withdraw 30,000 troops by next summer."

"Taking credit for this gradual withdrawal is like taking credit for gravity," said the ex-senator from North Carolina.

Using a comparable metaphor, Hillary Rodham Clinton warned voters not to give President Bush credit for de-escalating the war when he announces plans for 30,000 troops to leave Iraq, saying the military drawdown is scheduled to occur nonetheless.

"Taking credit for this troop reduction is like taking credit for the sun coming up in the morning," the senator from New York said in remarks near the Capitol.

"Mr. President, we don't need another 'mission accomplished' moment," she said. "What we need is honesty and candor, and honesty and candor demands that you announce that you will start bringing home troops now. If President Bush won't do that, when I am president, I will."

Republicans have been somewhat emboldened by the recent blitz by the administration attempting to shore up support for continuing the war. And they escalated their attacks on Democrats. Rudy Giuliani, responding yesterday to comments made by Clinton during Petraeus's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, accused her of resorting to name-calling and said Americans expect more of their candidates.

"What Hillary Clinton did here, accusing General Petraeus of a willing suspension of disbelief when -- you can disagree with General Petraeus, but you can do it without this kind of name-calling," said the former New York mayor.

Clinton's campaign immediately hit back at Giuliani, continuing an increasingly biting exchange between the two New York politicians. "Mayor Giuliani might be content to continue the Bush Iraq policy and bury his head in the sand when it comes to ending the war, but Senator Clinton will keep asking the tough questions in an effort to get our troops home," said Clinton spokesman Phil Singer.

The debate in the wake of the Petraeus testimony before Congress has become more strident. Another GOP candidate, Mitt Romney, blasted Obama's call for troop withdrawals yesterday.

"Well, thank heavens Barack Obama was not president over the last year, because had Barack Obama been president over the last year, Osama bin Laden would have been declaring victory in Iraq," the former Massachusetts governor said in an interview with Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel.

-- Anne E. Kornblut

BY THE NUMBERS

Debating Univision's Ratings

Univision, the largest Spanish-language network in the United States, claimed that a Democratic debate held by the network Sunday night reached 4.6 million people. But according to figures released earlier this week by Nielsen Media Research, the numbers touted by the network weren't entirely accurate. In fact, the total average viewers for Sunday's debate was 2.2 million, more than a million short of the numbers hit by last week's Republican debate on Fox News.

Officials at Univision said that reporting the debate's cumulative audience -- 4.6 million -- is an industry standard, the same way the Oscars, the Super Bowl and the World Series report their ratings. "We were comparing apples to apples," said Univision spokeswoman Maryam Banikarim.

Even with the 2.2 million "official" viewers, Univision is claiming success. Its debate drew the biggest audience thus far of all the debates in the 18 to 34 and 25 to 54 demographics, even beating the CNN-YouTube Democratic debate in July, Banikarim noted. Univision, she pointed out, attracts a younger audience.

Sunday night's 90-minute debate, held at the University of Miami, featured all but one of the Democratic presidential hopefuls. A GOP debate, scheduled to run on the network Sept. 16, was postponed. Univision cited scheduling conflicts among the candidates.

-- Jose Antonio Vargas