THE NOTE: Trading Places

Dec. 4, 2007 -- Just in the short window since the Democratic candidates last met on a debate stage, Hillary Clinton became Barack Obama, and Barack Obama became Hillary Clinton.

It's Obama, D-Ill., playing frontrunner -- talking policy, chiding the No. 2 for slinging mud, and having a hearty laugh over "silly season."

And it's Clinton, D-N.Y., launching scattershot attacks (a new one or two or three every day) -- while looking up at Obama in the Iowa polls.

(If you're into omens -- and this one works on several levels -- consider the smoking, sputtering Clinton press plane that arrived for the candidate's speech at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa -- where Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens played their last gig on "the day the music died.")

A new national poll reinforces the perceptions out of Iowa: Clinton and her fellow national poll leader, former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, R-N.Y., are slipping mightily in the USA Today/Gallup Poll.

"Clinton's standing among Democrats dropped by 11 percentage points from early November, and Giuliani's standing among Republicans fell by 9 points, though both continue to lead their fields," Susan Page writes in USA Today. "Clinton and Giuliani, who have topped each of 21 USA Today Polls taken this year, had never suffered such steep month-to-month drops before."

Clinton's latest critique(s): that Obama's all hope and no action, that he "started running for president as soon as he arrived in the United States Senate," and that he's taken a pass on tough votes in the Illinois state Senate and the Congress. "Without mentioning Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., by name, she all but accused him of weakness and laziness as a legislator and suggested his ambition exceeds his effectiveness," ABC's David Wright and Eloise Harper report.

This is not where Mark Penn thought Clinton would be back when he was bragging about how Republican women were coming on board.

This is not what Terry McAuliffe thought she'd have to be saying when he confidently declared that of course Clinton could win, since she was already winning.

And this is not where Clinton herself though she'd be back in the days when she could afford to brush off her rivals' attacks. "As the race here enters its final month, she is once again fighting to fend off concerns that have dogged her from the start of her campaign in the state," The Washington Post's Dan Balz and Anne Kornblut write. "Penn said the goal is to prevent the caucuses from becoming a referendum on Clinton and forcing voters to make a choice among candidates whose weaknesses and strengths have been put on public display."

This rocks the dynamics of the race.

It roughs up Obama, who has really not been aggressively challenged in this race, but it could also hand him (and the other Democrats) a critical advantage: Hillary Clinton can no longer make the inevitability argument.

This is not what shoo-in candidates do.

And so we have a Democratic race on our hands.

"At a time when two new Iowa polls show Obama actually pulling into the lead and Clinton losing support among women, some political observers are wondering if Clinton will come to regret her newly assertive strategy," Time's Jay Newton-Small writes. "She already has the highest negative ratings in the race, and the shift in tactics comes only a month before the Iowa caucus -- where voters are famous for their distaste of negative campaigning. Launching the attacks herself, rather than with via surrogates, only makes the move even riskier."

"Old friend" Robert Reich doesn't like what he sees. "I just don't get it. If there's anyone in the race whose history shows unique courage and character, it's Barack Obama. HRC's campaign, by contrast, is singularly lacking in conviction about anything," Reich blogs. "All is fair in love, war, and politics. But this series of slurs doesn't serve HRC well. It will turn off voters in Iowa, as in the rest of the country. If she's worried her polls are dropping, this is not the way to build them back up."

Her campaign surely didn't need to cite essays Obama wrote in Kindergarten and third grade to make its point that Obama has wanted to be president for a while. (Joke or no joke, that's when good oppo goes bad.)

And Clinton herself surely didn't need to reference the "fun part" of the campaign -- whatever her true meaning was -- in talking about her decision to get more aggressive on the trail.

With that line, "Hillary Clinton made what could be the biggest mistake of her campaign to date," Andrew Romano blogs for Newsweek. "Politicos recognize that 'attacking' opponents is a necessary part of the nomination process (even if voters, who typically inveigh against negativity while allowing it to color their perceptions of the candidates, don't always agree). But 'fun'? Not so much."

But Clinton is apparently very good at attacking without sounding like she's doing it.

"Notably, Mrs. Clinton's tone has not changed: The political hits were delivered Monday in a mellifluous voice and a steady smile," Patrick Healy writes in The New York Times -- picking up on her efforts to become the second choice of those who favor the second tier. "Such performance skill can soften the attacks; the problem for [Howard] Dean and [Richard] Gephardt, four years ago, was that they struck some people as hotheads."

Notice that Obama didn't respond to the latest round of attacks -- where's the upside in that for him at this stage of the campaign? The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny: "Instead of responding to a suggestion Mrs. Clinton made earlier in the day that he was a 'doer, not a talker' and that his candidacy offered 'false hopes,' Mr. Obama sought to change the subject. He renewed his call for a 'Credit Card Bill of Rights,' and vowed to crack down on predatory credit card companies."

He left the response to the always-quippy Bill Burton: "Barack Obama doesn't need lectures in political courage from someone who followed George Bush to war in Iraq, gave him the benefit of the doubt on Iran . . . and opposed ethanol until she decided to run for president."

As Bill Clinton hits the trail again Tuesday in New Hampshire, we'll see (or hear) the new dynamics in place at 2 pm ET Tuesday in Iowa, during the National Public Radio debate in Des Moines.

"There is no studio audience nor video cameras," NPR's Scott Horsley writes in previewing the forum. "Candidates will be able to engage one another in three areas of discussion, and field questions sent in by NPR listeners."

And pulling down the shroud of inevitability opens Clinton up to other arguments against her candidacy.

The New York Times' Carl Hulse travels to another Manhattan (in Kansas) to tell the red-state-fear-of-Clinton story through the eyes of freshman Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan. "Mrs. Clinton is a long way from winning the Democratic presidential nomination, and over the last few weeks has struggled to hang on to the air of inevitability that she has been cultivating all year," Hulse writes. "But the possibility that she will be the nominee is already generating concern among some Democrats in Republican-leaning states and Congressional districts, who fear that sharing the ticket with her could subject them to attack as too liberal and out of step with the values of their constituents."

This is the argument that Clinton's rivals have been making -- sometimes subtly, sometimes less so -- since those heady days when she led the national polls by 30 points.

Obama hit that theme yesterday in a Boston Globe editorial board meeting, suggesting that Clinton "would be too polarizing to capture more than a slim victory," per the Globe's Scott Helman. "Even if we win, we will have just eked out a victory, and we can't govern," Obama said. "I mean, if we have a 50-plus-one election, we cannot get a serious healthcare bill done. We can't have a serious agenda on climate change. And that is what I'm trying to break through, and I think I have an opportunity to break through."