WASHINGTON, 28 February 2008 — Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton went on the attack to halt Sen. Barack Obama’s momentum on Tuesday night — but she saved her sharpest blow of a bruising Ohio debate for the news media, accusing MSNBC’s moderators of coddling the Illinois senator.
In a startling expression of her campaign’s bitterness toward what they perceive as a pro-Obama bias in the news media, Hillary suggested the moderators were giving Obama preferential treatment. As proof, she cited a “Saturday Night Live” skit portraying journalists fawning over Obama.”
“In the last several debates I seem to get the first question all the time — and I don’t mind,” Hillary said when moderator Brian Williams asked her about her stance on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). “If you saw ‘Saturday Night Live’ last Saturday, maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and get him another pillow,” she quipped as some in the crowd booed.
The Illinois senator took his own shots at Hillary, suggesting that she whined about campaign fliers slamming her positions on health care and NAFTA. “I have endured over the course of this camp repeated negative mail ... on the other hand I don’t fault Sen. Clinton,” he said. “We haven’t whined about it because that’s the nature of these campaigns.”
Obama also sharpened his attack on Hillary’s 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq invasion, accusing her of having “facilitated and enabled” George W. Bush to “drive the bus into a ditch.”
During their final debate before next Tuesday’s contests, which also include races in Vermont and Rhode Island, they made their final pitches to voters in Ohio and Texas, must-win states for Hillary.
Neither one seemed to knock the other off stride, after a mostly somber and policy-filled debate that seemed unlikely to alter the political calculus of the race.
Hillary, who has lost 11 straight contests and her front-runner status, didn’t score a knockout, with an unruffled and confident Obama parrying her point by point during a contentious 90-minute showdown at Cleveland State University.
But it wasn’t for lack of trying.
An aggressive Hillary spent most of her time criticizing his positions on health care, the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and economic reform. They also wrestled over NAFTA, which was negotiated in her husband’s first term — but is seen by labor and other critics as a chief culprit in the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ohio and other industrial Midwestern states.
Hillary even accused Obama of not forcefully rejecting the support of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, after Obama said he denounced the minister’s anti-Semitic statements. “
If the word ‘reject’ is important, I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce,” he said, vowing to rebuild what he called a “frayed” relationship between blacks and Jews.
Hillary trod a delicate line between honest fighting spirit and blind swinging. And she made it her mandate to be angry last night, since some interpreted her graciousness at last week’s CNN debate as a concession of defeat.
In the end, political observers said she may have chafed some viewers by taking the fight to Obama; from which he seemed to emerge unscathed. “
I don’t think the debate changes a lot. Both came across as strong in the ways they’ve always been seen as strong,” said Wayne Fields, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “Neither one managed to seriously erode the other’s credibility.”
Hillary still holds a 6- to 7-point lead in Ohio, according to polls released this week. But that’s down from double-digit lead two weeks ago — and her oncesolid lead in Texas has evaporated.
She repeated her denial that her campaign circulated a photo of Obama wearing Somali tribal garb and Obama accepted, saying, “I take Sen. Clinton at her word.”
A few hours before the debate, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd endorsed Obama, saying, “It’s now the hour to come together... This is the moment for Democrats and independents and others to come together, to get behind this candidacy
