Countdown Tuesday: The Last Debate
Posted: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:00 PM by Countdown
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Blogging the Countdown
Cleveland Rocks:
Just seven weeks ago tonight, after what seemed like a game-changing victory in the New Hampshire Primary... Senator Hillary Clinton announced that, quote, "I found my own voice." Tonight, in the fifth story on our Countdown to the 20th Democratic Debate...As those intervening seven weeks have elapsed, Senator Clinton has seemed to add voice after voice to the sound-track of her campaign... until she seems to have more different ones available to her, than Rich Little. Thus the question -- a week before what could easily be her final tests in Ohio and Texas, 57 minutes before what could easily be the final debate of her campaign: which voice will she speak in, tonight. Or... which voices?
The Double Talk Express:
The public at a John McCain presidential campaign event in Cincinnati this morning... heard Senator Obama's middle name, used as insult... and innuendo... and the possible next president of the United States called a "hack" and a "fraud." Our fourth story on the Countdown: more conveniently for the racism and religious intolerance happily brandished at a McCain event... The candidate himself was not yet in the hall when the words were spoken, thus providing Senator McCain with the opportunity to play "Swiftboat-Plus," also known as "The Captain Renault Ploy" from "Casablanca" -- I'm shocked, shocked to find that slander is going on here.
Worsties: Glenn Beck... Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Jonah Goldberg vie for tonight's top honors.
Barack Attack: "Sixteen months into this, I'm just angry" -- the words of Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer. "We're on the way to locking this nomination down" -- the words of Clinton campaign advisor Harold Ickies. The real headline, as we continue our Countdown to the Debate with our number two story... both of those remarks occurred... at the same media event.
The Final Countdown: Cleveland, Ohio. Not just the site of what is probably the final of an epic 20 debates in this Democratic primary campaign... But the home of baseball owner George Steinbrenner, about whom it was once said, "not the kind of person who will sit around doing nothing, when a situation calls for panic. Our number one story on the Countdown: that, perhaps, the synopsis of the Clinton strategy on that stage minutes from now. But what of Barack Obama's strategy? Is he best advised to indeed... just sit around... and do nothing?
