All Smiles

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 1, 2008 8:59 AM

You could feel a bit of electricity at the Kodak Theatre, with Hollywood stars in the audience, as the two Democratic trailblazers faced off.

But then there was a power failure.

Barack Obama--perhaps making up for the snub?--set a high-minded tone by saying he would remain friends with Hillary Clinton, and that it's not about race or gender. But he laid down his "past versus the future" line, meaning why would you ever want to go back to the 90s? Hillary went right to the "stack of problems" awaiting the next prez and used her favorite phrase--"Day One"--to signal her greater readiness.

She doesn't want to talk to dictators without preconditions. He doesn't want to force anyone to buy health insurance. She would hold down costs more aggressively. He would lower premiums. She wants to underscore "three really critical points." He would broadcast the negotiations on C-SPAN. Which is what the debate was starting to feel like.

Wolf Blitzer was letting them go on, and on they went.

They got a bit more animated when the LAT's Doyle McManus asked them about being labeled as big taxers, as both candidates attacked the Bush tax cuts and Obama threw some tacks under the Straight Talk Express because John McCain, once opposed, now wants to extend them. But then Hillary was off on electronic medical records.

Blitzer tried to get Obama to contrast his "humane" immigration plan with Hillary's. Obama wouldn't bite.

The template was set. The two senators would talk policy, smack the Republicans, and barely lay a glove on each other. Clearly, they had concluded that the bickering had gotten out of control.

Even on immigration, when Barack said Hillary kept changing positions on driver's licenses, he quickly moved on. Hillary said he had initially bobbled the question as well. So there!

What this also said to me was that Obama and Hillary are both comfortable with their position heading into Super Tuesday. Neither was looking to throw the hard punch that could shake up the race. Neither wanted to take the risk of looking too aggressive.

Politico's Jeanne Cummings tossed out the Mitt Romney talking point that neither has ever run a business. Hillary ripped the current "CEO/MBA president"; Obama said Romney hasn't gotten a very good return on his zillion-dollar investment in the campaign. Hillary finessed a question about Ted Kennedy's endorsement by invoking her own Kennedy backers. Obama said Hillary's husband did some good things. Hillary finessed the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton question by saying we are "all judged on our own merits" (especially if we have a spouse who ran the country).

Nothing could break the kumbaya mood. Even when Wolf took an Obama answer about having opposed Iraq and translated it -- "Senator Clinton, that's a clear swipe at you"--she pretended it wasn't.

Why, Wolf asked, can't Hillary just admit her Iraq vote was a mistake? Hillary gave her usual answer about the inspectors. Barack gave his usual answer that this was a vote for war. And I had my usual feeling of d¿j¿ vu.

"I'm concerned about sex," Obama said--but the question was about seamy entertainment.

Can Hill control Bill? Hill laughed and said she is in charge.

There were just no sparks. (Debates have more energy when the candidates are standing.) The needle didn't move. If you liked Hillary or Obama going in, nothing happened, it seems to me, that changed your mind.

If they'd scratched each other a bit, maybe Blitzer wouldn't have closed by asking if they would run with each other. Personally, I don't think it will happen. But if only one of them had snarled and said, No way!

"They carefully framed their disagreements as small in comparison to their differences with Republicans," says the Chicago Tribune. "Each used some variation of the phrase "I agree" more than once.

"After weeks of fighting--in debates, in sound bites, by way of surrogates--Obama and Clinton seemed to have made a strategic calculation heading into Super Tuesday: Nice is better."

But there was one irreconcilable difference that had a back-to-the-future quality:

"The Iraq war reemerged Thursday as a dividing line between the two major Democrats remaining in the presidential contest, as Barack Obama used a Los Angeles debate to argue he has the judgment to lead the nation out of war and Hillary Rodham Clinton asserted that she has the gravitas to do the same," says the L.A. Times.

The paper says that "with the war again the focus, the race reverted to the campaign's purest distillation: Clinton's experience against Obama's judgment."

Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin zeroes in on that exchange:

"Clinton used the last showdown before Super Tuesday to trot out her familiar and false claim that her 2002 vote for the war was not really a vote for war. Everybody in the world knows the truth now, yet Clinton still can't admit it.

"It is a disheartening spectacle, similar in its own way to President Bush's inability to admit his mistakes in Iraq."

Marc Ambinder: "I was tempted to call this encounter a draw but I am mindful that there are no zero sum debates in presidential politics.

"And twenty minutes of Iraq happened. And so I'll give Obama the edge. Clinton was forced, for about 20 minutes, to recapitulate her vote on Iraq, over and over again. It was tough for her. She seemed to mire herself in the details of history."

Josh Marshall: "Obama in general has not been a good debater. But this was a good one for him. Clinton on the other hand I think helped herself by getting the focus back on her, as opposed to her husband. Not that there's anything wrong with Bill. But this is her election. I guess on points I'd give this to Obama because of the exchanges on Iraq, but it was a very close call."

Obama, having raised a staggering $32 million in January, is outspending Hillary on the Super Tuesday advertising front.

No wonder Obama is feeling good: Gallup has him trailing nationally by only 43-39. (McCain leads Romney, 37-22.) Of course, all that matters for the moment is the district-by-district breakdown in the Super Tuesday states.

Will the lefty blogosphere break for Obama? HuffPost's Bob Cesca says his fellow libs should take a stand:

"It . . . hasn't hurt Senator Clinton's chances that, somewhere along the line, it became de rigueur among some of the top-shelf progressive bloggers to remain neutral.

"I understand exactly why they did, but now that it's a two person race, there's no reason why the progressive blogosphere shouldn't get down to endorsing a candidate. And while the endorsements could easily be for either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton, they ought to be, by-in-large, endorsements that are consistent with the blogosphere's past activism against Democrats like Joe Lieberman, party machines like the DLC, and political stunts that reek of the current Bush Republican regime . . .

"Even if we were to strike the war from the syllabus, we'd still be left with a choice between a once-in-a-generation, transformational candidate who's running parallel to our collective desire to remake the party, and, on the other side, a candidate who represents a species of Democrat that we've traditionally rejected. If the blogs choose to step out of the way on this one, they're forfeiting an historic role in the most historic presidential election of our time while the antiquated, embarrassing politics of DLC triangulation sneaks on by without a fight."

I'm sure we're going to hear a lot more about this National Journal ranking that finds Obama the most liberal senator of 2007, with Hillary merely No. 16. Here's RedState:

"He talks about bringing together Rs, Is, and Ds to do what? Enact the same things that Clinton, Edwards, Kennedy and Kerry want to do. I'll believe the unifier rhetoric when he endorses School Choice and abandons the destructive teachers unions grip on educational opportunity or decides that entitlements need original reforms that include ideas like personal retirement accounts. But as long as his idea of unifying the country is socialized medical care, bloated government, growing entitlements, denial of progress in Iraq, an embrace of partial birth abortion and a disdain for working across partisan lines, he's a poser, not a unifier."

Wednesday's CNN debate may not have done McCain much harm, but the performers previously known as his "base"--the pundits--are not happy with the Arizonan. Take, for instance, Roger Simon:

"John McCain may be getting the hang of this front-runner thing. You say whatever you want to say, you keep repeating it, and you don't worry about the details. Straight talk? That was earlier in the campaign.

"At a Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Wednesday night, McCain repeatedly charged -- without a whole lot of evidence -- that Mitt Romney once supported a specific timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Romney heatedly denied it, saying it 'sort of falls into the dirty tricks that I think Ronald Reagan would have found reprehensible.'

"McCain didn't care. He knew Ronald Reagan was not around to give an opinion one way or another."

The Philly Inquirer's Dick Polman is just as tough:

"When the mood strikes him -- as it did Wednesday night, with the GOP brass ring finally in sight -- John McCain can sure be a duplicitous rascal.

"In the final Republican debate before the Feb. 5 primaries, McCain took Mitt Romney apart. He gleefully tormented his rival -- bile with a smile - while Romney just sputtered and whined. McCain was hit with a few tough questions along the way, but he shrugged them off, bobbing and weaving and stonewalling . . . and Romney, perhaps still reeling from his critical primary defeat in Florida, let him get away with it.

"In other words, there wasn't much 'straight talk' from McCain last night. But if the Feb. 5 voters are in the hunt for a wily SOB, they've probably found him. As the fabled baseball manager Leo Durocher supposedly said half a century ago, 'Nice guys finish last.' "

Atlantic's Marc Ambinder is more upbeat about Mac:

"Yes, Romney got in a few zingers -- the point about McCain and dirty tricks being one of them. But McCain's rebuttal was effective, and in any event, McCain knows this subject like the back of his hand, and he's able to argue circles around Romney."

Some conservatives are downright disgusted. And Andrew Sullivan likes the guy:

"This struck me as McCain's worst performance of the campaign. He seemed - understandably - exhausted. He kept pushing some untruths about Romney's position on Iraq. He seemed vague and unfocused on the economy. He was also more aggressive in swiping at Romney who was more civil and more engaging than I have seen so far. No, I still favor McCain on the issues - and on character. But either his relief at having this almost in the bag affected him, or he is showing his age."

At Pajamas Media, right wing nut Rick Moran is disappointed:

"You don't survive five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp by folding your tent and giving up. Compared to that, facing down Rush Limbaugh, the army of talk show hosts and conservative internet pundits who trash him on a daily basis is a cakewalk.

"This is the admirable side of McCain. Unfortunately, this is not the side McCain prefers to present to conservatives or Republicans most of the time. This is why he may very well become the nominee of the Republican party but will not enjoy the enthusiastic support of many if not most of its activists."

At National Review's Corner, the debate left Mark Steyn shaking his head:

"I'm getting a bit tired of Senator McCain's anti-business shtick. The line about serving 'for patriotism, not for profit' is pathetic. America spends more on its military than the next 35-40 biggest military spenders on the planet combined: Where does he think the money for that comes from?

"As for his line about 'some greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished', aside from being almost entirely irrelevant to the subject under discussion (the subprime 'crisis'), it reveals, I think, one of the most unpleasant aspects of McCain. For a so-called 'maverick', he's very comfortable with the application of Big Government power, and the assumption of Big Government virtue. Undoubtedly there are 'greedy people on Wall Street'. Why should he and his chums be the ones who decide whether they need to be 'punished'? If greed is to be punishable, why doesn't he start with a pilot program applied to, say, the United States Senate and report back to us in five years how that's going?"

This just in: Sean Hannity endorses Mitt Romney. Guess we won't be seeing McCain on that show. Imagine how Fox would react if Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews endorsed Hillary or Obama.

Some on the right are coming around on McCain:

"Others, faced with the prospect of either a Democrat sitting in the White House or a Republican elected without them, are beginning to look at Mr. McCain's record in a new light," says the NYT.

" 'He has moved in the right direction strongly and forcefully on taxes,' said Grover Norquist, an antitax organizer who had been the informal leader of conservatives against a McCain nomination, adding that he had been talking to Mr. McCain's 'tax guys' for more than a year.

"Tony Perkins, a prominent Christian conservative who has often denounced Mr. McCain, is warming up to him, too."

Blogger Will Bunch scolds the editorial pages that have backed both Obama and McCain:

"Barack Obama was against invading Iraq in 2002 -- he called it a 'dumb war' -- and has sponsored legislation to begin withdrawing the troops that are there now. John McCain supported the war from Day One and called one recent non-binding resolution to withdraw troops 'a vote of no confidence' in the U.S. military. Obama has been an unwavering percent supporter of abortion rights his entire career, with an 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood, while McCain has a 0 percent rating from NARAL and in February of last year called for overturning Roe v. Wade. McCain supports school vouchers, while Obama opposes them. Obama voted to reauthorize the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, while McCain voted against it.

"You want more? McCain is vehemently opposed to a universal health care plan, while Obama supports one . . .

"You shouldn't be going around expressing any kind of simultaneous support for both Obama (or Hillary Clinton, whose positions on many issues are similar) AND John McCain to get a crack at becoming the 44th president of the United States unless a) You truly believe that issues and the core political ideals that underlie them are virtually irrelevant, that the only thing that matters when you sit in the Oval Office is some objective definition of 'character' and a willingness to seek the mushy middle ground or b) you are a clinically diagnosed schizophrenic off your medication."

Want to see why Romney can keep going?

"Mitt Romney, the multimillionaire venture capitalist and former Massachusetts governor, reported last night that he plowed $18 million of his own money into his presidential campaign during the last three months of 2007, bringing the total sum spent from his fortune to $35.4 million," the Boston Globe says.

That's more than half his total haul of $54 million.

Quote of the Day

Edwards adviser Joe Trippi: "When the press wants to cover a two-person race, it's very tough for the third candidate. To break through in that situation, you have to get edgy, get harsher, be more strident - and we did and it would work for a few days and then the media would turn their heads the other way. What were we supposed to do, set ourselves on fire?"