In what CNN’s Bill Schneider billed as Hillary Clinton’s last chance to prove her worth to voters, the Texas debate on Thursday seems not to have changed the race.
It wasn’t quite the love-fest of the CNN debate in Los Angeles, California, three weeks ago, but Clinton repeatedly shied away from challenging her rival, even when the debate’s moderators gave her ample opportunities to do so.
The two moments that seem to have stood out the most to the pundits were when Clinton ridiculed Obama as the candidate of “change you can Xerox,” referring to his borrowed language from Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick.
Obama dismissed the charge out of hand, adding in a campaign debate, “What we shouldn’t be doing is tearing each other down, we should be lifting the country up.”
The other memorable moment came from Clinton’s closing remarks.
“You know, no matter what happens in this contest, I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama,” Clinton said. “I am absolutely honored.”
CNN referred to it as the candidate’s “Casablanca” moment, in which the movie’s protagonist, Rick, said, “It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”
But in the final analysis, Schneider doesn’t think Hillary did enough.
With her back against the ropes — and most likely only one primary loss away from the end of her presidential bid — Clinton simply chose to throw too few punches to clearly counter Obama’s increasing strength.
What’s become clear is that it’s going to take a lot more than cute and pithy phrases for Hillary to make a substantive attack about Barack.
If nothing else, tonight’s performance showed that negative campaigning is going to be a lot harder for McCain if Obama wins the nomination.
Read the CNN article here and the widely published AP story here.
