The Trail

Sunday, April 27, 2008

ANOTHER LINCOLN-DOUGLAS?

Clinton Wants Debate Without Moderators

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton again challenged Sen. Barack Obama to a debate in Indiana, but this time with a new twist: no moderators.

"Just the two of us going for 90 minutes asking and answering questions," Clinton said at a rally Saturday. "We'll set whatever rules seem fair."

Voters, Clinton said, "would love seeing that kind of debate and discussion; remember that's what happened during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. . . . I think that would be good for the Democratic Party, it would be good for our democracy and it would be great for Indiana."

Just before the senator from New York issued her challenge, Obama ruled out more debates in a taped interview with "Fox News Sunday" that will air Sunday.

"We've had 21, and so what we've said with two weeks, two big states we want to make sure that we're talking to as many folks possible on the ground, taking questions from voters," Obama said, according to excerpts of the interview. "We're not going to have debates between now and Indiana."

Robert Gibbs, the Obama campaign's communications director, added in a news release: "We have participated in 21 nationally televised debates, the most in primary history, including four exclusively with Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton refused an earlier invitation that had been accepted to debate in North Carolina. Over the next 10 days, we believe it's important to talk directly to the voters of Indiana and North Carolina about fixing our economy, cutting the cost of health care and ending a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized in the first place."

Obama was also pressed to debate by former president Bill Clinton, who said while laying out his wife's proposals at a campaign stop in the small town of North Bend, Ore., that "I wish that we could have debates on all this."

"Hillary has proposed that Oregon should have two debates, one on the issues generally and one on you, on rural life in America today and what should be done," Bill Clinton said, according to ABC News. "And if you agree, you oughta make your feelings known, either on her Web site or some other way."

The Clintons have called for debates in North Carolina and Indiana, which will vote on May 6, and in Oregon, which will hold a primary on May 20.

Obama and his supporters criticized the questions in a debate this month in Philadelphia, and last fall the senator from Illinois indicated he thought there were too many debates and forums. Clinton considers detailed discussions of policy a strength, and more debates offer more chances for her to change the dynamics of a race in which she trails.

Clinton aides note that more than 10 million viewers tuned into the debate in Philadelphia, and only a few sessions have featured Obama and Clinton.

Obama has repeatedly declared that most debates have offered little new information, particularly since the two Democrats share similar policy views.

-- Perry Bacon Jr.

SOFTENING HIS TONE

Obama Eases Up on Clinton, Targets McCain

ANDERSON, Ind. -- When Barack Obama headed to Indiana and North Carolina after his loss in Pennsylvania, the question loomed: Would he continue ramping up the tough tone against Hillary Clinton that he flashed in the final days before last Tuesday's vote?

Judging from several days on the trail in Indiana, the answer so far appears to be no. In his Hoosier stump speech, Obama has returned to training most of his fire on Sen. John McCain and Republican governance of the past seven years, only secondarily going on to explain why he would be a better Democratic nominee than Clinton.

His sharpest words in Clinton's direction did not mention her by name and decried the "ticky-tack" nature of the primary campaign.

"If you watched the last few weeks of campaign, you'd think all politics is about is negative ads and bickering and arguing and gaffes and sideline issues," he in this struggling manufacturing town.

"There's no serious discussion about how we're actually going to bring jobs back to Anderson, that's not what's being debated. That's the politics we've gotten used to over the last 20 years, and I'm tired of that politics because it doesn't solve problems. One of the things we've got to do is bring this country together and stop being distracted by back-and-forth ticky-tack."

In each Indiana town he stops in, Obama is introduced by a resident who symbolizes the tough economic times. The candidate lists statistics specific to the town, describing job losses and income stagnation since 2000. This leads to his indictment of the Bush administration and, by association, McCain.

Both in Anderson and in a previous town hall meeting in Marion, he said he is a better choice for the nomination because he would be better positioned than Clinton to overhaul a stalled Washington system. And he criticized her at both stops for voting for a bankruptcy-reform bill backed by the credit card industry.

But when given an opening by a voter here to criticize her campaign's comments defending the Veterans Affairs health system, Obama passed.

"Senator Clinton has differences with me, and I have differences with her," he said. "I just have to remind everyone that those differences pale in comparison with the differences we have with George W. Bush and John McCain."

-- Alec MacGillis