The next US President

Washington diary: Long haul to '08

	Quote:	Matt Frei BBC News, Washington
	The thermometer announced this afternoon that it was 94F (35C) - on 9 October. The air conditioning ploughs on in the Frei household. The basement is a freezer. The upstairs bedrooms still feel like a pizza oven and the mosquitoes, fat, complacent and cocky after a summer of feasting on our blood, are getting indigestion. Their happy hour continues. And so does our misery. Sticky summer temperatures are persisting in Washington DC The grass is yellow. The leaves are turning a turgid brown as opposed to a fluorescent red or yellow. I glance at the Washington Post that has landed on my doorstep, narrowly missing the geranium that still thinks it is August. Through the heat haze I make out headlines about fundraising quarter results posted by the candidates, upcoming debates, Fred Thompson's debut on the podium next to the other eight, or is it nine, Republican hopefuls? I no longer know for sure. My head is spinning. I feel faint. And it's only October 2007. Yawns and wrinkles We have another year and a month of this ordeal before we know who will inherit the White House from George W Bush. The most unpredictable and exciting election campaign in recent US history is beginning to feel like an extended, mosquito-infested Washington summer. And that's coming from a political junkie. It's not just me. At recent campaign events I have noticed that the candidates, too, look and sound exhausted. The 45-year-old Barack Obama appears visibly aged by the relentless campaign, even as his critics claim that his biggest problem is youth. How unfair is that? Campaigning is taking its toll on almost all the 2008 contenders As Charlie Cook, the veteran political pollster and pundit put it: "Barack's obstacle is not that he's black but that he's green." Even John Edwards has betrayed a few microscopic wrinkles around his doe eyes. Fred Thompson was filmed yawning like a hippo in Iowa. He looks completely knackered and he's only just started campaigning, and is keeping his stump speeches to a genteel minimum. The only candidates who look suspiciously unblemished by the experience of giving the same speech 10 times a day in three different time zones are Hillary Clinton who, I'm increasingly convinced, appears super-human, and Mitt Romney who, being a Mormon, has never had a drink of coffee in his life - let alone alcohol. Money well spent? The amounts of money the top candidates are raising continue to raise my hair. There was $20m for Barack Obama, and that was in the quiet months of summer. An even more impressive $27m for Hillary. And $18m for Mitt, even if he did have to lend his campaign $8.5m from his own well-stuffed coffers. The presidential election is well on course to cost more than $1bn. Counting state, senate and congressional elections, the whole 2008 cycle is expected to clock up more than $3bn. Mitt Romney: No caffeine but plenty of dough to keep him going Isn't that the GDP of some small but perfectly formed country? A large proportion of the money is spent on TV commercials. But aren't they becoming obsolete as a result of on-demand TV? Amazingly, the ads still work. They are targeted with the precision of smart bombs to persuade undecided voters. Experts believe that they are money well spent. All this cash and all these bags under illustrious eyes are making me yearn for the poignant simplicity and the fruit-fly brevity of a British election campaign. Rival dynasties First of all, our elections are a bargain at some $80m all up for the three big parties' campaigns. And that's for electing 646 members of parliament, who then choose the prime minister Rules stipulate that each candidate can spend just over £7,000 ($14,000) per constituency and up to seven pence (15 cents) per voter on top of that. That's 35 John Edwards hair-cuts or perhaps 10 Hillary suits from the basic spend. Moreover election campaigns can't last longer than a month. TV advertising is free and the airtime is strictly controlled by the authorities, who give every party the same number of minutes. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown decided against a snap election Election plans are like camping tents. They can be set up and dismantled in a day. Last Monday, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was still partial to a snap election. By Thursday, when the Conservatives had narrowed his Labour Party's lead in the polls to a miserly 1%, he was no longer so partial. Gordon changed his mind in a flash. The election was never called. The very idea of a "snap" election is anathema to the US, a country that knows exactly when it will vote - on the first Tuesday of November every four years - and can garner enough money to allow the monster campaign to mushroom. In America, every election has been more expensive than the last and yet the White House has passed from a Bush to a Clinton, back to a Bush and, many believe, may pass back to a Clinton. It seems an awful lot of time and money to spend on what looks to outsiders like two rival dynasties fighting over the same address.

Soma hapa

Does Hillary Clinton going to be the first woman president of USA?

[Gigo]

Obama!!-Hivi Dua Ni Mtanzania? Mbona ana kuja na thead Nzuri sana..??? za English...

ha..ha!!

Kwa hiyo Vibaya Ndio vya Africa?-vizuri vyote ni vya wengine?
Ina nikumbusha Siku moja nilikua nina Ongea na Baba Yangu mdogo!!
al-manusula uzuke Ugomvi!!
Sijui!!
Au Labda alitaka Kunitisha tu? ......

Ghafla Nili Mwambia kwamba Obama atakua Raisi wa Marekani!!
wakati huo tulikua tuna angalia Tv.

Nini? aliniuliza huku akini angalia usoni..-Tofauti na siku zote hua hana mtindo wa kumu angalia mtu usoni lakini siku hiyo alini angalia..
Kama vile ana hasira!?!

Alinishinda kwa hoja ambazo kama ninge zi-clash!! Labda Ningeshindwa kuendelea Kuishi kwenye Chumba cha watoto wake wa kiume- kwenye nyumba yake!!

Nakula kwake..Nalala bure..nashinda naangalia Tv..Ana niletea sigara zaidi ya sita kila siku..Bure!!Natumwa Sokoni- tena wana niamini Kweli kweli!!


Haiwezekani!! Mu-Africa Kutawala Marekani!!
Nilivyo zinguliwa na mimi niliendelea kudanganya vitu ambavyo hata nashindwa kuvikumbuka-Ili mambo yaende vizuri...

Inawezekana Obama akawa Raisi ...

[Bongolander]

The Americans have tacitly agreed that US presidents should be WASPs, no chance for OBAMA,osama.

[Dua]

George Bush smooths path for Hillary

	Quote:	Sarah Baxter – Sunday Times October 7, 2007
	Bush administration officials are paving the way for a smooth transition to a possible Democratic presidency as Hillary Clinton consolidates her position as the overwhelming favourite to win her party’s nomination for the 2008 election. Clinton has powered her way to the top of the Democratic pack, establishing a 33-point lead in one poll last week over Barack Obama, her nearest rival. She raised $7m more than Obama in the last quarter and attracted more individual contri-butors than the Illinois senator, proving her popularity with grassroots Democrats. With Clinton looking the near-inevitable nominee, Bush officials intend to hold her to her promise to be tough on defence and national security. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, is hoping to establish a bipartisan consensus on defence that will last beyond next year’s election. In the clearest sign of a shift in gear, Gates is to appoint John Hamre, a former official in President Bill Clinton’s administration, to chair the Defense Policy Board once led by Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative advocate of the invasion of Iraq. The board’s job will be to prepare for the transition to a new administration in 2008, according to a Pentagon spokesman. Hamre, who was Bill Clinton’s deputy defence secretary in the 1990s, has been highly critical of the conduct of the war on terror. In The Washington Post last year he wrote: “The policies that led to Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, secret renditions and warrantless wiretaps have undermined America’s towering moral authority.” In common with Gates, Hamre is sceptical about the value of the Iraq troop surge. He recently served on a bipartisan commission on Iraq chaired by James Jones, the former Nato commander. In evidence to Congress last month, Hamre said: “Absent political reconciliation, it’s hard to see how this [the war] ends well.” However, Hamre, who heads the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, also argued that America “will be hurt if we crawl out or run out of Iraq”. He believes the next president should maintain a vital but scaled-down presence in the country in order to oversee the training of Iraqi security forces and to “direct operations against known bad guys”. Lawrence Korb, a defence expert at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank, described Hamre’s imminent appointment as a “brilliant move” which would mark a dramatic break with Perle’s era. “Most people think the next president will be a Democrat and Gates, who has been around for a long time, believes it is his job to ensure that national security is not affected,” Korb said. Clinton has been sidestepping calls to pull US troops out of Iraq if she wins, sticking to a broader promise to begin a phased withdrawal. In a recent television interview, the New York senator refused to state that all US combat troops would leave Iraq by the end of her first term in office. She voted in the Senate last month to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organisation. Perle believes that Clinton might be prepared to order military strikes against Iran if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes Tehran’s nuclear programme to the brink. “If President Clinton is informed in March 2009 that we’ve got ironclad intelligence that if we don’t act within the next 30 days it’s going to be too late, I wouldn’t begin to predict what she would do,” Perle said. “Nobody wants to act before it is absolutely essential . . . but things can change very quickly.” Perle is generous about the appointment of Hamre, arguing that the Defense Policy Board has a tradition of bipartisanship. “He’s an experienced professional and a very good choice,” Perle said, noting that George W Bush had kept on George Tenet, a Clinton appointee, as CIA chief after winning the 2000 election. Bush believes Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and has privately advised her not to voice antiwar rhetoric on Iraq that she may come to regret, according to a new book, The Evangelical President, by Bill Sammon. “It’s different being a candidate and being the president,” Bush said. “No matter who the president is, no matter what party, when they sit here in the Oval Office and seriously consider the effect of a vacuum being created in the Middle East . . . they will then begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy.” The Treasury, under Henry “Hank” Paulson, has also been appointing Democrat supporters to senior positions. Robert Novak, the conservative columnist, reported that Paulson last week named Eric Mindich, a leading Democratic fundraiser, for a key role as an adviser on financial markets. One Republican in the Bush administration wrote disapprovingly in an e-mail: “This leads some to wonder whether this Treasury has become the preplaced Hillary Clinton team.” Clinton’s domination of the Democratic field may prompt her leading opponents to sharpen their rhetoric against her. So far the contest with Obama and John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, has been remarkably civil. Edwards upped the ante against Clinton last week by attacking links between Mark Penn, her senior adviser and poll-ster, and Blackwater, the private security firm that was accused of recklessly killing 11 Iraqi civilians last month. “We don’t want to replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats,” he said. Edwards and Obama have rarely criticised Clinton directly by name, but David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign manager, said his candidate would rather show a “common purpose to our politics rather than divisiveness and political point-scoring”. It was too soon for Clinton’s coronation, Axelrod said: “How-ard Dean had plenty of momentum in the fall of 2003, when everyone was anointing him the Democratic nominee. I’m happy if the Clintons want to do victory laps in October; I’ll take ours in January and February” when the primary votes are counted. Obama is still hoping to win the Iowa caucus, where Edwards is also performing well. Michelle Obama, his wife, who will be visiting Britain on a fundraising mission next week, let slip recently: “If Barack doesn’t win Iowa, it’s just a dream.” Obama upset traditional voters last week by saying that he was against shows of patriotism, such as wearing a pin lapel of the American flag. “I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest,” he said. “Instead I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great.” Peggy Noonan, President Rea-gan’s former speechwriter, said the Clintons had the Democratic party in a trance. She wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “The Bushes are wired into the Republican money-line system; the Clintons are wired into the Democratic money-line system. For two generations now they have had the same dynamics in play . . . Is this good for our democracy, this air of inevitability?”

Advantage aliyonayo Hillary ni Bill ambaye ndio machine ya kuweza kurudi tena White House kwa mara nyingine. Je anataka kuwa silent vice president? Hata hivyo sheria ya Marekani haimkatazi aliyekuwa rais kuwa Vice.................Wamarekani bwana huu mwaka moja na nusu kabla ya uchaguzi tutashuhudia mengi. Wachunguzi wa mambo wanasema Dubya yuko mfukoni mwao, is he?

[Dua]

Hillary Clinton, top Democrats how to keep Iraq war going

	Quote:	Bill Sammon – The Examiner via Ziopedia.org October 4, 2007
	President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president. In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’ ” Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.” “Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.” To that end, the president has been sending advice, mostly through aides, aimed at preventing an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq in the event of a Democratic victory in November 2008. “It’s different being a candidate and being the president,” Bush said in an Oval Office interview. “No matter who the president is, no matter what party, when they sit here in the Oval Office and seriously consider the effect of a vacuum being created in the Middle East, particularly one trying to be created by al Qaeda, they will then begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy.” To that end, Bush is institutionalizing controversial anti-terror programs so they can be used by the next president. “Look, I’d like to make as many hard decisions as I can make, and do a lot of the heavy lifting prior to whoever my successor is,” Bush said. “And then that person is going to have to come and look at the same data I’ve been looking at, and come to their own conclusion.” As an example, Bush cited his detainee program, which allows him to keep enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay while they await adjudication. Bush is unmoved by endless criticism of the program because he says his successor will need it. “I specifically talked about it so that a candidate and/or president wouldn’t have to deal with the issue,” he said. “The next person has got the opportunity to analyze the utility of the program and make his or her decision about whether or not it is necessary to protect the homeland. I suspect they’ll find that it is necessary. But my only point to you is that it was important for me to lay it out there, so that the politics wouldn’t enter into whether or not the program ought to survive beyond my period.” The Examiner asked Bush why Democratic candidates such as Clinton and Barack Obama, who routinely lambaste his handling of Iraq, should take his advice. “First of all, I expect them to criticize me. That’s one way you get elected in the Democratic primary, is to criticize the president,” Bush replied. “I don’t expect them to necessarily take advice from me. I would expect their insiders to at least get a perspective about how we see things.” He added: “We have an obligation to make sure that whoever is interested, they get our point of view, because you want somebody running for president to at least understand all perspectives, apart from the politics.” Besides, Bush suggested that Clinton and Obama just might benefit from his advice. “If I were a candidate running for president in a complex world that we’re in, I would be asking my national security team to touch base with the White House just to at least listen about plans, thoughts,” he said. So far, Bush has been encouraged by the fact that Democratic candidates are preserving enough wiggle room in their anti-war rhetoric to enable them to keep at least some troops in Iraq. “If you listen carefully, there are Democrats that say, ‘Well, there needs to be some kind of presence,’” Bush said. A senior White House official said the administration did not put much stock in pledges by Democratic presidential candidates to swiftly end the Iraq war if elected. “Well, first of all, if you’re a presidential candidate,” the official said, “you’re able to [finesse] the public posturing that you may be required to do, or that you fall into doing. “The other thing is, they are being advised by smart people,” the official said. “We’ve got colleagues here on the staff who have good communications with some of the thinkers on that side. “And there is a recognition by most of them that there has to be a long-term presence by the United States if we hope to avoid America being brought back into the region in a very precarious way, at a point where all-out resources are required.” One topic discussed by the White House and Democratic presidential campaigns is whether such a long-term presence should be inside Iraq, as Clinton prefers, or just outside, as Democratic candidate John Edwards has suggested. Asked by The Examiner whether the Democrats were reluctant to have private contacts with the administration, the White House official replied: “No, I think they sort of welcome conversation.” Besides, he said, Democrats understand the negative consequences of moving too quickly to reverse Bush’s Iraq policy. The official noted that in the wake of Vietnam, anti-war Democrats “suffered for 20-some-odd years because they were identified as the party, when it came to national security, of being weak.” “If I were a Democrat, I would not want to be in a place where I was forcing us to withdraw in ’08,” he said. “It’s an election year and any bad consequences would immediately be on their head. “One of two things will happen if a Democrat gets elected president,” he said. “They will either have to withdraw U.S. troops in order to remain true to the rhetoric — in which case, any consequences in the aftermath fall on their heads. Or they have to break their word, in which case they encourage fratricide on the left of their party. Now that’s a thorny issue to work through.” Vice President Dick Cheney was philosophical about the possibility of a Democratic president fundamentally reversing the policies that he and Bush have worked so hard to implement in Iraq. “It’s the nature of the business, in a sense,” he shrugged during an interview in his West Wing office. “I mean, you get two terms. We were fortunate to get two terms. And I think we’ll increasingly see a lot of emphasis on deciding who the next occupant of the Oval Office is going to be.”

Dick Cheney? .............Who? What a vice president, we've got one back home, never had about him since the last election. Only wandering in butcheries and few trips here and there.

Iraq will continue to be a centre piece for the next election.

[Gigo]

Ok Evey one- Try to fake me with English- a tough language that keep on Stressing me!! Can we tolk about this in Swahili?

I'm sorry 'cause You sound stupid all the time!!Why don't you Understand me!?Obama is a next president of USA..I know Americans Wont let me down on this- many of them will vote for OBAMA!!He got many Advertages that you are not even able to think about!!

Time will help OBAMA!!

[Dua]

Obama Tweaks Clintons on 'SNL'
Nov. 4, 2007, 2:59 AM EST

Barack Obama

	Quote:	The Associated Press
	NEW YORK -- After spending most of Saturday criticizing Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama took the stage with two impersonators — Amy Poehler and Darrell Hammond — on "Saturday Night Live." The opening sketch of Saturday's broadcast featured Poehler and Hammond, as the Clintons, hosting a Halloween party. Toward the end of the sketch a man walked in wearing an Obama mask — which he removed to reveal he was, indeed, Obama. "I have nothing to hide," Obama said. "I enjoy being myself. I'm not going to change who I am just because it's Halloween." Campaigning in South Carolina earlier, Obama accused Hillary Clinton of giving voters "vague, calculated answers to suit the politics of the moment instead of clear, consistent principles about how you would lead America." And he subtly swiped at former President Bill Clinton by listing problems that "existed long before George Bush took office." Obama wrapped up his brief late-night comedy stint with the show's signature line: "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night."

The first shot from Barrack Obama,.......................what will be Hillary answer?

[Gigo]

Yes!! She Is comming out with a bom!!Obama Let see That Hillary!!and Bill Clinton..

[Icadon]

Mon Nov 12, 9:25 PM ET

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton's lead is shrinking among Democratic contenders for the White House after a series of miscues and stepped-up attacks by her rivals.

Her air of invincibility took a hit this week amid reports that her staffers had planted audience questions, combined with fresh criticism by Democrats who accused her of shifting with the political winds during a presidential debate two weeks ago.

Although the former first lady still leads the pack of Democratic contenders for the White House, polls released Monday suggested that her campaign was losing steam.

Clinton had for months commanded a 30-point advantage over her closest competitor, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, but Monday saw that lead slip to 19 percent, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation.

The poll, surveying 467 Democrats or independent voters likely to pick a Democrat for the White House, showed 44 percent would choose Clinton while 25 percent would vote for Obama.

The figures were in stark contrast to the same poll a month earlier which showed Clinton garnering 51 percent of likely voters and holding a 30-point lead over Obama.

Two other polls in the key state of New Hampshire, which traditionally holds the first presidential primary contest, showed similar results.

The CNN poll was taken just days after Clinton was attacked by her fellow White House hopefuls in a debate on October 31 as the Democratic race hit new levels of intensity.

During that debate, Obama branded her one of "co-authors" of the Iraq war and former senator John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004, accused her of political "doubletalk."

Edwards blasted Clinton's support for a Senate measure that labeled Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group, which critics said may be used as a justification for war.

And Obama, who has fended off accusations from the Clinton camp that he is too inexperienced to lead, said Clinton's vote in 2002 to authorize the administration's invasion of Iraq made her a "co-author" of the war.

With the party's first nominating contest in Iowa less than two months away, Clinton's staff was forced to acknowledge planting audience questions on the campaign trail, and promised not to do it again.

The incident arose last week during a question-and-answer session in Iowa, at which a college student reportedly told her campus newspaper that she had been approached by "a Clinton aide had asked her to pose a question to Mrs. Clinton about global warming," the New York Times said.

A spokesman for Clinton told the newspaper that a campaign aide had indeed planted the question but Clinton had not been aware of it, and said the campaign would not engage in such tactics again.

"ItÂ’s not something we do; itÂ’s not an official campaign policy," Mo Elleithee was quoted as saying. "But it is now an official campaign policy that we will not do this moving forward."

"It was news to me," was Clinton's response. "Neither I nor my campaign approve of that, and it will certainly not be tolerated."

Meanwhile, Clinton's rivals kept up the steady stream of attacks, saying she was vague with voters on key issues, dodged hard questions and tailored her answers to different interest groups.

"I think that what Senator Clinton has been doing is running a textbook Washington campaign," Obama said on Sunday.

"What that says is that you don't answer directly tough questions, you don't present tough choices directly to the American people, for fear that your answers might not be popular, you might make yourself a target for the Republicans in the general election."

[Dua]

In feisty debate, Clinton fires back


Presidential hopeful accuses Democratic rivals of distorting her record

	Quote:	The Associated Press
	updated 10:37 p.m. ET Nov. 15, 2007 LAS VEGAS - Under pressure in a feisty debate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused her closest rivals Thursday night of slinging mud “right out of the Republican playbook” and leveled her sharpest criticism of the campaign at their records. “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,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a debate seven weeks before the first contest of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. “There’s nothing personal about this,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who joined Obama in bluntly accusing Clinton of forever switching positions on Social Security, driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and other issues. “The American people know where I stand,” said Clinton, turning aside the suggestion that she was seeking to hide her positions. Long an advocate of universal health care, she said Obama’s current proposal leaves millions uncovered and that Edwards did not support health care for all when he first ran for president in 2004. The three-way confrontation at the beginning of a lengthy debate reduced the other Democratic presidential hopefuls on the debate stage to the uncomfortable role of spectator, yet it perfectly captured the race for the party’s nomination. Clinton leads in the nationwide polls, but recent surveys in Iowa show she is in a virtual dead heat with Obama and Edwards. For Richardson, Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the opening moments were frustrating — and they repeatedly tried to break in. “Oh, no, don’t make me speak,” Biden said in mock horror when moderator Wolf Blitzer called on him roughly 15 minutes into the proceedings. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has campaigned in Nevada more than any other presidential hopeful, took verbal shots at Clinton and her two closest pursuers in the polls. “Let’s stop the mudslinging,” he said. Richards attacks top three Yet Richardson, who has campaigned in Nevada more than any other presidential hopeful, took verbal shots at Clinton and her two closest pursuers in the polls. He said Edwards is engaging in class warfare, Obama was trying to start a generational war and Clinton, “with all due respect with her plan on Iraq doesn’t end the war. All I want to do is give peace a chance.” Richardson was in the minority when the candidates were asked whether human rights could ever trump national security. He said it could; Clinton said it could not, and Dodd said “obviously national security.” Obama challenged the question, saying “the concepts are not contradictory.” Clinton, her standing as the front-runner at risk, seemed intent on redeeming what even she conceded was a sub-par performance at the previous debate, turning aside criticism from her rivals and answering questions with practiced ease. Asked whether she was guilty of playing the “gender card” in her drive to become the first female president, she said she had not. “They’re not attacking me because I’m a woman. They’re attacking me because I’m ahead,” she said to loud applause from the audience. Obama was the first to challenge Clinton, saying it took two weeks to “get a clear answer” on whether she supports or opposes issuing driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. “The same is true on Social Security,” he said. Clinton fires back at Obama For the first time in a debate since the campaign began, Clinton swiftly answered in kind. “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. She added his plan would leave 15 million people without coverage — the population of Iowa and three other early voting states in the nominating campaign. Edwards was next to accuse Clinton of trying to have it both ways — with the war in Iraq, Social Security and defining the scope of President Bush’s power to use military force against Iran. “She says she will bring change to Washington while she continues to defend a system that does not work, that is broken, that is rigged, that is corrupt,” added the former North Carolina senator. “I’ve just been personally attacked again,” Clinton broke in. “I don’t mind taking hits on my record on issues, but when somebody starts throwing mud at least we can hope it’s accurate and not right out of the Republican playbook.” The debate unfolded on a stage at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. The state holds caucuses on Jan. 19 — following Iowa on Jan. 3 and most likely the New Hampshire primary several days later. The focus on Clinton from the debate’s opening moments was hardly surprising. The New York senator herself has conceded she turned in a sub-par performance at the last debate, when she stumbled on a question about driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. Her husband, the former president, leapt to her defense in the interim, saying of her rivals: “Those boys have been getting tough on her lately.” The setting underscored Nevada’s newly prominent role in the nominating process. The state is far more racially diverse than either Iowa or New Hampshire, with a population that is about 22 percent Hispanic and 10 percent black. Nevada brings new issues to spotlight Democrats in Nevada hoped the focus on their state would prompt candidates to pay closer heed to Western issues like water, grazing and mining rights. But it was more than an hour into the two-hour debate before the issue of energy came up. Instead, Clinton drew the first question — and moments later the first barb from Obama. Despite her critics, she said, “I think the American people know where I’ve stood for 35 years,” adding she had been fighting for children, workers, families and universal health care. More than an hour later, Dodd sought to turn the focus back onto Clinton, saying she had changed positions on trade by announcing her support for a deal with Peru at the same time she advocates a “time out” for such agreements. Moments earlier, Clinton gave a careful answer when asked whether she now viewed the North American Free Trade Agreement — a product of her husband’s administration — to be a mistake. “NAFTA is a mistake to the extent it did not deliver what we hoped it would,” she said. And she fielded another question about NAFTA with a quip. Asked whether she now believes Ross Perot when he argued against NAFTA in a 1993 debate with her husband’s vice president, Al Gore, she said: “All I can remember from that is a bunch of charts,” a reference to Perot’s penchant for presenting information in made-for-television format.

The clintons have been enjoying a lot of support from minorities, what will happen when the dity gets dirtier? Others call her a nut cracker, is she?