Democrats Battle Over Character, Electability

Dec. 5, 2007 — -- The Democratic presidential candidates have transformed the race into a battle almost entirely over character and electability as the three leading candidates scramble for position in a tight race in Iowa and beyond.

With broad agreement on the major issues, big policy questions have receded to the background. And daily sniping between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., -- who is leading in the latest Iowa polls -- is leaving an opening for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards to make his case to caucusgoers with a minimum of interference from his rivals, political observers and strategists say.

Clinton, the national front-runner, completed the transformation of the race into a tussle over integrity and the ability to win by beginning direct engagement with Obama over a range of topics.

In virtually all of her attacks -- on health care, on Iran, on Obama's political action committee, even on when Obama first harbored presidential ambitions -- Clinton is focusing on broad questions about trust and experience, rather than the details of the policy disagreements themselves.

"We've got to be willing to put up a candidate who's willing to stand up for it and fight for it," Clinton said last week in Iowa in attacking Obama's health care plan.In a similarly broad vein, Obama and Edwards have for months argued that Clinton is too polarizing a figure to lead the Democratic Party in an effective manner.

"Even if we win [with Clinton as the nominee], we will have just eked out a victory, and we can't govern," Obama said Monday in an interview with The Boston Globe.

Edwards said Tuesday that Democrats need to look beyond the race for the White House in choosing a presidential candidate who can help House and Senate candidates in Republican as well as Democratic states.

"What I know is that, having grown up in a small town in rural North Carolina, having won in a red state, I'm somebody who can go anywhere in America and not just help myself and help get a Democrat in the White House, but actually help people who are running in difficult places," Edwards said on MSNBC. "I know that some people have expressed those concerns about Sen. Clinton."