NYT:At Debate, Two Rivals Go After Defiant Clinton

PATRICK HEALY and JEFF ZELENY
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/us/politics/06dems.html?hp

It was as if they sensed vulnerability.

Senator Barack Obama and John Edwards went after Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as never before in a televised debate here on Saturday night. With Mr. Obama hoping that a victory in New Hampshire, following his first-place finish in Iowa, would make him difficult to beat in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination — and Mr. Edwards looking for a chance to defeat her a second straight time — they entered an alliance of convenience.

In an exchange that summed up the basic story line of the contest, they cast her as a candidate of the status quo who would fail to deliver the changes in government that many Democratic voters demand.

With the New Hampshire primary two days away, Mrs. Clinton found her courage, likability, and judgment under attack. But she fought back as she did when she was first lady of Arkansas and the United States — with feistiness and flashes of anger, pursing her lips, stiffening her back, and staring intently at her rivals.

were behind her back happily accepting special interest money to be used to counteract all the words her mouth was so happily spitting out. She didn't show me anything tonight I already didn't know....sorry, again, I admit she is not my candidate and never will be....unless she is the only one standing and then we might as well bow to Prez Rudy and his terrist freedom fighters.

... Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton thought they were living in the past and could use the same centrist ideas to get her elected. But this isn't the past. After decades of rightwingerism, too many people are suffering financially, and people are tired and not going to take it anymore.