Politico: Hillary fights back in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS – New York Sen. Hillary Clinton responded to weeks of increasing criticism from her rivals at a debate here Thursday night with a rhetorical show of force of her own. She accused former North Carolina Senator John Edwards of "throwing mud" and said Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is being too modest in his plans for healthcare and too aggressive in aiming to raise Social Security taxes.

Clinton was cheered – and her rivals' criticisms were, at times, booed — by an unusually raucous crowd made up of students, labor union members, and Democratic activists at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

"I don't mind taking hits on my record on issues, but when somebody starts throwing mud, at least we can hope that it's both accurate and not right out of the Republican playbook," Clinton said.

Edwards and Obama tried to continue a strategy that had seemed to dent Clinton’s poll standing in recent weeks – the complaint that she avoids clear stands on key issues. “What the American people are looking for right now is straight answers to tough questions, and that is not what we have seen from Senator Clinton on a host of issues," Obama said.

But after an unusually tense opening 10 minutes, Clinton’s two chief challengers seemed to lose momentum.

Asked whether she was guilty of playing the "gender card," Clinton had one of the evening’s top applause lines. “They're not attacking me because I'm a woman,” she said. “They're attacking me because I'm ahead."

Nevada's new, high-profile role in the Democratic nominating process was intended in part to involve more Hispanic voters in choosing a presidential nominee. The debate was introduced by CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, a critic of immigration who is reportedly considering running for president himself. And it came after Clinton and Edwards had moved away from a pro-immigrant stance on an issue that tripped up Clinton in another debate two weeks ago in Philadelphia.

On Thursday night, it was Obama who seemed to stumble on the question of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, a marginal issue that has been abandoned even by most immigrant-rights groups. While he had voiced straightforward support for issuing licenses – a state level issue – he made clear that as president, he would not impose license rules on the states.

"Do you support or oppose driver's licenses for illegal immigrants?" asked the moderator, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, echoing the question that had tripped Clinton up in Philadelphia.

"I am not proposing that that's what we do," Obama replied, weighing the sides of the issue until Blitzer cut him off."

"This is the kind of question that is sort of available for a yes or no answer," Blitzer said, and Obama – alone among the leading candidates — later answered, "Yes."

Edwards, who didn't raise his hand in Philadelphia when asked if he opposed a New York plan to offer licenses to illegal immigrants, said Thursday he did oppose the plan. Clinton, who had until recently refused to state her position, also said she opposed it.

The debate's opening minutes also saw Clinton pick a fight on comfortable turf: healthcare policy.

"When it came time to step up and decide whether or not he would support universal health care coverage, he chose not to do that," she said of Obama, after he criticized her on other subjects.

She was referring to the fact that her plan, like Edwards', requires that all citizens buy health coverage, while Obama's relies on subsidies to allow poor people to afford healthcare.

"The only difference between Senator Clinton's health care plan and mine is that she thinks the problem for people without health care is that nobody has mandated, forced them to get health care," Obama replied. "What I see are people who would love to have health care.

They desperately want it. But the problem is they can't afford it."

Edwards, meanwhile, seemed to back off some of his campaign’s criticism of Clinton after she fired her own shots in his direction. Besides the charge of “mudslinging,” Clinton criticized Edwards’ record on health care, saying that in his 2004 campaign, he didn’t support universal coverage.

In particular, Edwards eased away from the direct charge that Clinton had been "disingenuously playing the victim card" after the last debate.

"There's nothing personal about this. I think there are very good people running in the Democratic Party for president, and we need to have a strong candidate in this presidential race," he said, responding indirectly to the question of whether Clinton has played the "gender card."

Outside the hall, meanwhile, the immigration issue lurked in the form of Dobbs, who wrote on CNN's website last week that he expects another candidate to emerge, and has hinted that he could be that man.

"I believe next November's surprise will be the election of a man or woman of great character, vision and accomplishment, a candidate who has not yet entered the race," Dobbs wrote.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6925.html