In replay of late February arguments, campaigns spar on need for more debates

Since the end of February, Barack Obama has been trying to portray his nomination as a done deal while Hillary Clinton is doing what she can to convince voters and pundits that the race is still wide open. She told Newsweek last week that, "Neither of us can win without superdelegates. Neither of us can possibly get to the nomination unless something totally unforeseen happens." Of course, his argument is much closer to the truth than hers is, but as long as Clinton is staying in the race, winning major primaries by convincing margins and forcing Obama to respond to her criticisms, it is difficult to argue that the race isn't in some sense competitive and it makes it impossible for him to move on beyond the primaries.

In a predictable dynamic, the Obama campaign is increasingly trying to act like this is not a competitive race while Hillary's is coming up with new tactics to transform this race into the suspenseful contest of the century -- and these dueling spins are coming head-to-head on the issue of whether there will be more debates. The Obama campaign today announced that there would be no debates before May 6th; they had already declined one in North Carolina to be broadcast in CBS and they have now also rejected one in Indiana. With 21 debates already held, Obama insists, it is more important for him to talk to voters.

The Clinton campaign is now complaining Obama is ducking debate -- but you might remember that they tried to make this into an issue in the run-up to the Wisconsin primary, and we all know how that contest ended. The Clinton campaign is thus upping the stakes this time, calling for the organization of debates in the style of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, in honor of their 150th anniversary! In a letter she wrote to David Plouffe, Maggie Williams proposes that the two candidates respond to each other with no set agenda and no set rules, with each Senator answering the other for 2 minutes; they could thus stay on an issue as long as they want, and just see where their conversation takes them.

In her quest to still be taken as a legitimate candidate that has been dealt with seriously, Clinton obviously would love as many debates as possible -- and the more momentous the better. In a debates, the front-runner is forced to acknowledged that his nomination has not reached inevitability status; also, debate coverage in the media necessarily emphasizes horse race story lines -- did candidates help themselves, hurt themselves, who won -- thus treating both candidates as having a chance at clinching the nomination, which is exactly the impression Hillary wants to portray. Finally, Clinton needs as many events in the coming weeks as possible for her (and superdelegates) to have something to wait for. As soon as everything but the convention is taken care of, what can Clinton say she is staying in for and how can she make superdelegates hold on?

Meanwhile, the latest Gallup tracking poll (the first taken entirely since the Pennsylvania primary) has Clinton closing the gap with Obama entirely, with the two candidates tied at 47%. On Monday, Obama led by 10%. In the general election, Clinton has opened up a 3% lead with McCain, while Obama is tied with the Republican at 45%. A Newsweek poll released today and also conducted after the primary has better news for the Illinois Senator -- tough he suffers from a big drop here as well. In primary numbers, he is ahead of Clinton 48% to 41%, but that's a 12% tightening since the 19% lead Obama had last week (worth noting that the previous poll looked like an outlier, so the trendline might stronger than it should be because of that). In the general election, both Democrats lead McCain by 3%, 48% to 45% for Clinton and 47% for 44% for Obama.