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Opinion: The Democratic debate in Philadelphia

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A running account:

Lots of folks are looking for some body-language clues as the ABC-sponsored debate begins. No such luck.

As the cameras click on, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are already standing at their respective podiums.

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In a break from most of the previous debates, both candidates get to make an opening statement. And both strike a high-minded tone -- Clinton especially so. She notes that although neither she nor Obama, as a woman and a black man, were fully accounted for in the Constitution written in Philadelphia, site of the debate, their presence on the stage demonstrates the promise of America.

Obama references his now-infamous ‘bitter’ comment. He says that as he has campaigned in Pennsylvania, he has been struck by the ‘core decency and generosity’ of the state’s residents but that he also has taken note of their ‘frustrations’ (not bitterness) over the state of the nation.

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After an initial question on whether whichever candidate emerges as the winner in their battle will commit to picking the other as a running mate -- and after the predictable dodge by both -- ABC’s Charles Gibson cuts to the chase and asks Obama about his comment at a private fundraiser in San Francisco that small-time Americans, faced with economic frustrations, ‘cling’ to guns and religion.

Obama repeats his refrain of the last several days that he didn’t express himself artfully but that he stands by what he insists was his overarching theme -- that people are frustrated by the feeling that Washington has passed them by.

Of his original remark, he says, ‘It’s not the first time I’ve made a statement that got mangled up. It won’t be the last.’

He then stands by, looking balefully at Clinton, as she notes (with her immediate audience of Pennsylvania voters in mind) that ...

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she’s the granddaughter of a Scranton mill worker. And though she refrains from the sharp-edged attacks she launched against Obama over the weekend, she says she does not believe that her grandfather or father or other average Americans ‘cling to religion when Washington is not listening to them.’

She makes the same point about hunting and guns.

Clearly, she still views Obama’s comment as a political gift that keeps on giving.

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The other major controversy that has ensnared Obama since he and Clinton last debated, on Feb. 26, the inflammatory comments by his ex-pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., comes up next.

Initially, it has a played-out quality to it. Obama, however, possibly errs in keeping the topic on the table by responding to Clinton after she reiterates her point -- made weeks ago -- that you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your pastor, and she would have made a point of ending her membership in Wright’s church.

As the discussion wears on, the debate’s other questioner, George Stephanopoulos, asks Obama whether he considers Wright as patriotic as himself. Obama notes that Wright served as a Marine. Still, it’s probably a place he didn’t want to go to.

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The gaffe that has plagued Clinton the most since the last debate -- her now-discredited tale that she came under fire during a trip, while first lady, to Bosnia -- is the next topic.

Clinton responds with a touch of anger in her voice that may not serve her well. And while conceding that she misspoke, she makes a passing reference to an excuse she used that also caused her grief -- that she misrepresented what happened to her in Bosnia because she was sleep-deprived.

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That overlooks the fact that she erroneously talked about being under sniper fire a few times, and not always at late-night events.

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Gibson and Stephanopoulos were probably damned if they did and damned if they didn’t.

They had to bring up the ‘bitter’ flap. They had to broach Bosnia. Maybe they didn’t have to rehash Wright, but they did. Anyway, the result is that the debate is more than half over, and the war in Iraq, the home mortgage crisis, health insurance issues, etc., etc., etc., have all gone wanting.

Obama took a crack at making this point but, initially, to no avail. More than likely, these and other matters will soon start to come under discussion.

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Sure enough, finally, Iraq is asked about.

Clinton stresses that she will begin a troop withdrawal within 60 days of taking office -- while also saying that it will be done in a ‘responsible’ way.

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Obama is asked if he would stand by his pledge to have troops out of Iraq within 16 months of becoming president, regardless of what U.S. generals advised. He asserts that yes, that is his call, ‘because the commander in chief sets the mission.’ And, he adds, the U.S. involvement in Iraq is a ‘bad mission.’

He does throw in a caveat that he will ‘always’ listen to the military about ‘tactics’ -- meaning, presumably, that he would follow their lead in terms of implementing a safe withdrawal.

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The debate turns to Iran, and Clinton -- like Obama -- clearly relishes that it has turned to more substantive concerns. With more animation than either candidate has exhibited up to this point, she says she believes an opportunity exists, ‘with skillful diplomacy,’ to reach out to other nations in the Middle East to forge some sort of agreement on how to deal with Iran.

She also resurrects a dispute from last summer that arose when Obama argued that the next president should be willing to negotiate directly with the heads of rogue nations without the usual rounds of sustained meetings among underlings.

Back then, Clinton (and many other Democratic candidates still in the race at the time) lambasted Obama over that comment. And tonight she stresses that she is in no way prepared to sit down with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, she notes, earlier in the day referred to the 9/11 attacks as a ‘suspect event.’

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Almost by accident, a lively exchange occurs over Social Security.

Obama defends the willingness he has expressed -- unlike Clinton -- to at least recognize that higher payroll taxes on higher-income earners would need to be considered as a way to ensure that the system will be able to handle the wave of baby-boomer retirees just starting to break.

‘We’re going to have to capture some revenue to stabilize Social Security,’ he says.

Clinton repeats her call for establishing a commission to come up with suggestions -- a convenient way to steer clear, during the campaign season, of embracing anything controversial on the issue.

Obama makes that point, noting that the commission that grappled with how to replenish Social Security’s coffers during the early part of the Reagan administration paved the way for higher payroll taxes and an increase in the retirement age.

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Both candidates try to thread a needle on gun rights, a subject Gibson brings up after noting that it’s the one-year anniversary of the massacre at Virginia Tech. The discussion mainly demonstrates how, over the years, a once-fervent commitment by most mainstream Democrats to focus on stemming handgun availability has faded.

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Clinton, without going into detail, commits herself to trying to ‘bridge this divide’ between die-hard advocates of the Constitution’s ‘right to bear arms’ phrase and those who want to ensure that guns don’t end up in ‘the wrong hands.’

Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, says that as ‘a general principle’ he supports an individual’s right to own a gun. But that doesn’t mean, he quickly adds, that the state can’t ‘impose restraints’ on that right.

Neither can be pinned down to take a yea-or-nay position on the high-profile case pending before the Supreme Court: the challenge to the District of Columbia law that bars virtually all of the city’s residents from keeping in their homes handguns not registered before 1976.

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No new themes or messages emerge as Clinton and Obama, in the debate’s wrap-up, are offered a chance to make their case to the Democratic superdelegates who, it appears, will have to put one of them over the top after the primaries play out on June 3.

We imagine that in their private conversations with these party honchos, the two -- and their surrogates -- make much more compelling, and gritty, arguments. In this showcase, they reprise the roles they staked out when getting in the race in January 2007.

Clinton offers herself as the experienced, tested leader who would ‘tackle the problems that have been waiting for a champion’ in the White House.

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Obama offers himself as an agent of change (though avoiding that particular phrase). To truly make progress on healthcare (a subject not discussed), schools (a subject never asked about during these encounters) and other pressing concerns requires a ‘new political coalition,’ he asserts. And the one who could bring about that breakthrough, of course, would be him.

-- Don Frederick

Photo Credit: AP/Charles Dharapak

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