PA Debate Reflections: Hillary Has Become the Anti-Obama

The Philly Constitution Center was a good venue for this debate, perhaps the candidates' last. Everyone kept quiet and the timing was relaxed--a breath of fresh air. With people sitting around in darkness it looked like the Galactic Senate from Star Wars.

Obama spun his "bitter" remarks as "not being properly phrased." He talked about reaching out to people of faith, which he says he does more than other campaigns, and of the support of sportsman in his state, "because he listens to them." Interesting turn of phrase--not because he supports the gun-control policies that they do.

Obama brought up the "baking cookies" remark of Hillary on the '92 campaign trail. A perfect example of how a long track-record bogs you down (as if Hillary's Iraq vote wasn't enough proof). Then he ripped into Hillary for not learning the lessons of Republican attacks and doing the same thing. Pretty good stuff. "What the American people want are not distractions," he said. The old way of doing things, he is against all that. He constantly brings everything back to his message of old vs. new. What discipline. You have to think this is why he's probably going to be the nominee. What's Hillary's message? She's become the anti-Obama! The opposite of what everyone thought would happen, which is that she would be the front-runner and there would be an anti-Hillary candidate challenging her. Obama's done a great job of not falling into that. "Vote for me, I'm not her" is not a winning mantra--you have to be for something to win. Obama is for something, Hillary is flailing around seemingly for only herself. This is the campaign's fault, Mark Penn's fault. She defined herself as a "fighter" going against the special interests. This is a loser-ball tactic (though I'd be singing a different tune if 269 people had changed their minds in Florida in 2000), at least as opposed to Obama's appeal to unity.

Hillary was on the defensive and halting in her response to Obama, and she sounded like an echo to his plea to "get things done" rather than playing politics. She did a little better perhaps on the next question on Rev. Wright, but again Obama looked like the front-runner.

On the Bosnia question, Hillary took another hit. She had no good answer to Tom Rooney, the everyman who asked the question via prior interview. She basically said "I lied, sorry!" Seemed like a pretty big admission. She turned it back to her experience as an advantage. At the end her emotion seemed like "Whew!" She was glad that was over.

Barack then hit it out of the park again, managing to seem like he was nice to her ("She has a wonderful record") when he really wasn't ("She wouldn't be here if she didn't") and again turning it back to "this moment of our history." He looks like the visionary, the leader, while she's stuck in the past with the old Clinton ways. Obama has really mastered the art of running against a woman. He seems courteous, gentlemanly, all the while his flaks are ruthlessly destroying her credibility. Except for the one bad "you're likable enough" he's done a A+ job. McCain is getting pointers all over the place. You can just see him staring at the TV jotting things down.

On the other hand, Obama flopped on the "do you love the flag" question. "I can't help but love this country." Not a good response. Where's the passion? This isn't academic--say you love the country, don't give an argument why people should infer that you must love it.

Hillary got a laugh-line with her suggestion that Republicans not run anybody at all, and just apologize for the Bush years. She was very direct in saying that Obama will have trouble running against McCain. Her baggage "has already been rummaged through." Obama: "I've showed that I can take a punch. I've taken several from Sen. Clinton." They weren't debating here to a PA audience, but to the superdelegates. Jay Cost has a great post on this, the real race.

Both were strong on the Iraq question. They were a lot more comfortable talking policy than personal stuff, when they each are halting and too deliberate. Same thing on taxes. Two Democrats preaching fiscal responsibility--Bush has made things so easy on them.

Also on taxes, they played a clip from McCain bashing Obama. Hillary laughed, and that brought the viewer's attention to her, and blurred the fact that McCain was speaking about Obama--without her laughing, everyone would have looked at Obama's reaction on the screen, and it would look like he would be the likely nominee, at least in McCain's mind.

The gymnastics on gun control were fun to watch. PA is a big hunting state, the NRA lobby has a lot of influence, and you had two candidates trying to appear to hold the direct opposite of what they have always held.

Meanwhile McCain's campaign has the freedom to portray an honest, open, tell-you-how-it-is candidate through town-hall meetings. The virtue to this is that McCain doesn't have to worry about running against someone yet, and can focus on building up his own image, running a positive Huckabee-esque campaign. And fundraising for an McCain smear-job has fizzled.

McCain is going to run on his personality. The Democratic nominee is going to run on policy. And the election will be heavily influenced by the environment--how Iraq is doing and how the economy is doing. If both are fine McCain will have a chance.