Debate roundups

I'm pretty sick and tired of primary season by this point, and I think the main reason for that is less the unending series of debates than the infuriating coverage of those debates in the papers the next day. But, I guess we're stuck with them. So here's a pretty good roundup of yesterday, and a poorly written one.

On the electability question:

"In a perverse way, you know, I think the Republicans and their constant obsession with me demonstrates clearly that they obviously think I am communicating effectively about what I will do as president," [Hillary] said.

Edwards shot that theory down. "I mean, another perspective on why the Republicans keep talking about Senator Clinton is, Senator, they may actually want to run against you, and that's the reason they keep bringing you up," he said.

I think Edwards (and Obama, who had a similar line) are more right than wrong on this question, but that they run the risk of getting mired in a "they think that I think that they think that I think" epistemological maelstrom if they focus on that.

The reasons the Republicans trash Hillary Clinton are that she's perceived to be the favorite and that--this is key--she's the same Hillary Clinton they've been trashing for 15 years. That all has its roots in unusually filthy political dirt, but the fact is she was a convenient whipping girl for the GOP when her husband was president and they succeeded in turning her--a moderate, hawkish, calculating, technocratic pragmatist--into an unhinged lying radical. It might not be fair, but that's how she's seen by a significant percentage of voters in the country.

It's folly, in my view, for Edwards and Obama to convince themselves that they're somehow less vulnerable than she has been to similar caricaturing. But it's not folly for them to point out that the Hillary script is already written and that there's no reason to give Republicans such a big head start.