The beginning of the end for Hillary?
October 31st, 2007 – 10:34 AM by Dennis J. McGrathLast night’s Democratic presidential candidates debate may prove to be a turning point in the nomination contest.
Hillary Rodham Clinton was the target of an unrelenting attack from the right and left — from John Edwards, standing to her right, and from Barack Obama, standing to her left. The reviews on Clinton’s performance are not kind, and they raise new doubts about how firm her grasp is on the front-runner status.
John Edwards makes a point about Hillary Rodham Clinton during Tuesday’s debate |
Without a doubt, John Edwards was more aggressive than Barack Obama in the tag-team attack on Clinton, and it seems to have paid off. Readers of the Daily Kos, voting in an online poll, are giving the win to Edwards by a 3 to 2 margin over Obama (3,077 votes to 1,943 votes out of about 9,000 cast). Clinton falls into third place with about 1,500 votes.
Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen writes: “Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards emerged as the evening’s most effective and articulate challenger to Clinton, who did not acquit herself well and turned in an uneven, sometimes waffling performance.”
Roger Simon at Politico says the debate revealed something not seen before: “When Hillary Clinton has a bad night, she really has a bad night.”
The debate moderators, Tim Russert and Brian Williams, directed their toughest questions at Clinton, asking her to explain inconsistencies in statements she’s given in recent weeks and months.
The Drudge Report says that a Clinton insider blames the mess on NBC’s Tim Russert, saying he was belligerent.
The Informed Voters blog provides a video recap of the highlights of the debate.
Unless anyone wants to argue that Clinton came out ahead last night, here are the questions: How much damage was done to her? Was Russert belligerent, or was he simply trying, in a direct but professional manner, to get Clinton to answer the questions? Finally, was Edwards the big winner from last night?
14 Responses to "The beginning of the end for Hillary?"
Yup - she took a beating. But anyone who didn’t see that coming isn’t paying much attention.
She’s the front-runner: she’s the person eveyone else needs to beat up right now, including (apparently) the moderator.
She’s also an average candidate - good, but not great. In an “all against one” format like yesterday, she performed about average.
But titling this topic The Beginning of the End.. is overblown. Her political machine is as strong as her support base. Your link to Drudge is very telling: “The Men Gang Up”. From Drudge no less.
(ps - Russert is a worthless debate moderator. His “gotcha” questioning style is useless for debating ideas. He’s a ratings generator - nothing more)
2008 will be very interesting. I believe Ms. Clinton is not well liked.
If you choose to believe this news source, I’m already wrong.
According to the people who read the Daily Kos–Edwards *always* beats Hillary. The poll you cite would have come out the same way even if there had been *no* debate.
The Kos is about 150,000 members–all progressive Democrats who want the war ended yesterday. They will support *any* leading Dem candidate who promises he will get out first. A few months ago it was Obama; then he supported funding for the troops. Now it’s Edwards; he’s promising if he’s president he’ll get our troops out of Iraq the first year.
So that’s what the poll on the Daily Kos “signifies.” The readers are literate, well educated, they follow politics–but they tend to go with the candidate who tells them what they want to hear about the war, rather than the candidate who is straightforward enough to give them “the bad news.”
Wishiwuz2 is right, Mr. McGrath’s headline is overblown–again. Mr. McGrath, you seem to have the Chicken Little gene. “Hillary’s through; trackers are openly spying and engaging in skulduggery; Mars attacks–”
“Tough night for Hillary” would have served just as well as a headline, and would have been more accurate. But thank you for the round-up on the press reaction.
Wish —
Wow, a moderator who was actually prepared with previous statements made by a candidate who prefaced his statements with, “could you please clarify” or “a point of clarification” and he is useless?
It seemed that only one candidate had problems with his style “useless for debating ideas”, and that was Clinton, and as someone stated in another post, this should not come as a surprise.
Listen, I’m a conservative, and I have become disgusted at some of the media who have attempted to bypass the will of the people by crowning a King and Queen on both sides of the aisle. If last nights debate did anything, it was level the playing field a bit in the media.
Russert and Williams did a fantastic job, and it was the best debate so far this election cycle, republican or democrat. They should be applauded.
Hillary will prevail - she withstood the mud slinging with grace, dignity and intelligence. She has a depth that is lacking in Edwards and Obama.
If one shaky debate performance makes one not worthy to be the front-runner, then we need a whole new field of candidates because all of them (on both sides of the aisle) have in one debate or another not been at their best.
The test of whether or not this is meaningful or not is how these candidates do in further debates and if the polls move at all. I doubt that this one debate did anything meaningful to move the polls, and I suspect we won’t see Hillary off balance like last night again.
Edwards and Obama weren’t really making anything stick until Hillary blundered the drivers’ license question (which, I would argue, is a largely inconsequential question for Presidential candidates).
Thanks for linking to my political blog, and my video recap of the democratic debate last night.
I am no fan of Hillary Clinton, but from what I saw of the debate, she did very well. She ran as a general election candidate, and the others looked left wing. I thought Edwards came off as shrill.
Ain’t nothing to the notion that the moderators or Hill’s rivals are piling on: Get it now or get it later when it’s too late. She’s got obvious electability issues that need be dealt with while the nomination’s up in the air. Harder to run against Romney’s flipflopping when she’s got that performance to defend.
brush writes
“She has a depth that is lacking in Edwards and Obama.”
Brush, with all due respect, such a statement is indicative of a complete and utter unawareness of the positions of Edwards, Obama or Clinton.
The Senator from New York was rightfully criticized for her generally undefinable positions on a host of issues. Her rebuttal? “The boys are ganging up on the girl.” In other words, when challenged on her lack of specificity, she changes the subject and plays the gender card. That is not the kind of President we need to undo the damage done over the last seven years.
bsimon,
Just out of curiosity, what damage are you referring to?
Mr. Grant,
Are you legitimately curious, or just baiting bsimon? Are you honestly unaware of any damage this Administration has done? Or do you have a different definition?
There is good and bad, Same as any presidency.
You two don’t honestly think the last seven years have been all bad, do you?
First - No, I don’t think it’s been all bad. But this discussion will go much faster if we start with the ‘good’.
Gimmee your thoughts. Are you a NCLB fan? Think the economy is doing great? The Medicare bill was a win for regular folk? Maybe there’s some good in the Forestry Act? Faith-based initiatives??? We should leave the GWOT and any other foreign policy matter alone.
And I’ll further challenge your statement that this has been the same as any Presidency.
In the early days, I sometimes liked what I heard this President initially propose. Not many things, of course, I am a liberal, but some things. It was when he implemented those proposals that things rapidly decayed.
He’s not a bad guy, and I believe he usually means well. Plus - he’s my President and I have the utmost respect for the office. But this guy is a screw-up.
I don’t get very worked up about the current field - Romney, Clinton, Richardson, McCain, whomever. I believe any one of them will handle the job better than George has.