watch for the live debate thread later tonight. the drinking words and phrases will be, "change", "elitist",
"out of touch", "middle class", and "drop dead, bitch".
seriously, hillary has to go for the jugular tonight, while The BarackStar! has to prove that a chick can't kick his ass.
this will be a very contentious debate, and there won't be any whiney john edwards to provide a break in the knife
fighting.
in other words, this should be fun.
Obama, Clinton face off in what could be their last debate
WASHINGTON — After weeks of sniping at each other from a distance, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama meet face to face tonight in what could be their last debate.
The showdown, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, will be televised from 8 to 9:30 EDT on ABC. ABC News anchors Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos will moderate.
Tonight's clash comes at a crucial time, with Obama still the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination but trailing Clinton in opinion polls in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary next Tuesday. Obama also is facing new questions about how thoroughly he's been vetted and the debate is likely to include some of the flash points and revelations that have dominated the increasingly nasty campaign in recent weeks.
Among them: Obama's remarks that working-class Pennsylvanians were clinging to religion and guns out of bitterness about their economic standing, his relationship with a pastor seen in videotapes damning the United States and Clinton's efforts to capitalize on both to revive her campaign.
After gaining on Clinton in Pennsylvania, where a come-from-behind win would create enormous pressure on her to quit the race, polls suggest that Obama has stalled there.
"There is pressure on him to rebound," said Larry Rasky, a veteran Democratic strategist.
Obama's key challenge tonight is to connect with working-class voters, particularly white working-class voters.
He's long had a hard time winning them away from Clinton, and he's been newly hammered for his comments that critics charged linked such voters' embrace of religion and guns to such negative values as xenophobia.
While Obama tried photo ops such as bowling — Clinton tried a shot and a beer — he needs to make a more substantive connection with a populist economic message, more John Edwards than Adlai Stevenson, Rasky argued.
"He needs to step up and show he's on their side," Rasky said.
A new poll of likely primary voters by Quinnipiac University found Clinton stopping Obama's gains on her and holding on to a lead of 50-44 percent, but it also indicated that she hadn't gained anything from her effort to portray Obama as an out-of-touch elitist. The poll of 2,103 likely voters conducted over the weekend had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
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