"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton heads into tonight’s Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas with an opportunity: to try to erase the unflattering image that her chief rivals, and her own mistakes, have helped create.
Yesterday, in an attempt to neutralize one possible threat at the debate, her campaign announced that Mrs. Clinton would not support driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants as president. It is the latest formulation of her position, which has shifted since it became a tripping point in the last televised debate on Oct. 30.
Her advisers say they hope the matter will now be off the table, but Mrs. Clinton’s top rivals made clear that they would continue to press the argument they have been making in recent weeks, that she is inconsistent and overly political.
“When it takes two weeks and six different positions to answer one question on immigration, it’s easier to understand why the Clinton campaign would rather plant their questions than answer them,” said Bill Burton, a spokesman for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a rival in the race for the nomination.
“Wow, this is dizzying,” added Eric Schultz, a spokesman for former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, another rival.
Mr. Edwards has also given somewhat conflicting statements on the driver’s license issue. “The differences on this are clear: Senator Clinton is opposed to giving driver’s licenses to undocumented people, Senator Obama is for it, and no one knows where Edwards is,” said Jay Carson, a Clinton spokesman.
The last debate began a new level of intensity in the Democratic contest. Since then, Mr. Edwards has been pummeling Mrs. Clinton on a host of domestic and foreign issues; Mr. Obama has been slicing more delicately.
But with both attracting the anti-Hillary vote, neither has emerged as the clear alternative to her, political analysts say.
Tonight’s two-hour debate, at 8 on CNN, offers opportunities for all three candidates, but Mrs. Clinton has the most repair work to do. At the last debate, both opponents and the moderator, Tim Russert, challenged her for taking vague or contradictory positions, like on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, a proposal by Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York that was widely trounced and then withdrawn yesterday.
Since then Mrs. Clinton has been buffeted on other fronts, like her Iowa operation’s planting friendly questions with audience members at her events.
Mrs. Clinton spent Tuesday and yesterday off the campaign trail to prepare for tonight, huddling with her team at campaign headquarters yesterday. Advisers said in interviews that Mrs. Clinton had not been prepared for the onslaught at the Oct. 30 debate, and would be far more ready for incoming fire in Las Vegas. She has been preparing to point out inconsistencies in Mr. Edwards’s and Mr. Obama’s positions, and to give yes-or-no answers to convey forthrightness.
Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director, said the two rivals had been increasingly harsh in their attacks, and predicted that the debate would show Mrs. Clinton’s experience as both a candidate and possible president.
“The last debate we saw both Senator Obama and Senator Edwards abandoning their promises to run positive campaigns, and certainly we are prepared for more of the same Thursday night,” Mr. Wolfson said.
Political analysts say Mrs. Clinton’s two rivals have not been especially ruthless — pointing out differences on Social Security or Iran, for example, rather than trying to stoke the concerns about Mrs. Clinton that some Democrats have had since the 1990s.
“Edwards and Obama are still waltzing around her rather than hitting on doubts about her that would really resonate with voters,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University.
“One absolutely devastating accusation that could resonate is that she is gullible — she bought into two false story lines, one from her husband about Monica Lewinsky and one from President Bush about Iraq,” Mr. Baker added.
Linda L. Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, said she was surprised that the rivals have not even managed to dent Mrs. Clinton’s strong lead in opinion polls about which Democratic candidate is prepared to be president.
“The experience of first lady is simply not the same thing as running a complicated organization,” Ms. Fowler said.
The risk for Mrs. Clinton’s top rivals, of course, is that negative attacks on Mrs. Clinton could boomerang against the attacker, as happened to Richard A. Gephardt after he lashed into Howard Dean leading up to the 2004 Iowa caucuses.
Joe Trippi, a senior adviser to Mr. Edwards, said his candidate was not focused on tearing down Mrs. Clinton, but rather on convincing voters that she was part of a political system that Americans should turn against.
David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief strategist, also said that his candidate was more determined to be an alternative to “a style of politics that’s inadequate to the time,” rather than an alternative to Mrs. Clinton herself.
Advisers to Mrs. Clinton said yesterday that she could not allow her views to be defined or misconstrued by her opponents.
“The challenge for Senator Clinton is to rise above the attacks because she’s the largest figure on the stage,” said Robert Zimmerman, a public relations specialist and a leading fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton. “And the challenge for her supporters is not to be on the defensive, but to stay on the offensive against the attacks.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/us/politics/15dems.html?ref=politics
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