THE NOTE: Obama in Spotlight at Democratic Debate

October 30, 2007 — -- What we won't see at tonight's Democratic debate in Philadelphia:

1. Donnie McClurkin.

2. Dick Cheney's flag, Fred Thompson's campaign SUV, or Rudy Giuliani's prediction coming true.

3. Mike Gravel.

What we will see:

1. Hillary Clinton's laugh (and patronizing smile).

2. John Edwards' glare (and finger-jabbing anger).

3. Desperation (times four -- or more).

What we might see:

1. An anti-Clinton double (or triple) team

2. A soundbite that doesn't belong to a candidate named Clinton, Edwards, or Obama.

3. A fresh attack from this newly aggressive Barack Obama we've been primed to expect.

If Obama, D-Ill., has some new sharp attack lines in mind, he must be saving them for tonight's debate. It was mostly business as usual on the trail yesterday, with Obama chiding Clinton on Social Security and Iran but passing up some shots at drawing "distinctions" between himself and the Democratic frontrunner, ABC's Sunlen Miller reports. If he hadn't taken the "Ellen" stage with a dance -- to Beyonce's "Crazy Love," for the record -- it might have been any other campaign day.

If that doesn't change tonight, Obama will have some serious explaining to do -- not just to reporters, but to the donors and supporters who are looking for him to rough it up with Clinton, D-N.Y. "Obama seems to have been telegraphing the punches he may throw tonight," Lynn Sweet writes in the Chicago Sun-Times. "The senator will demonstrate either how well he is executing his strategy or will fail to deliver on expectations he's been raising himself."

This time, it's personal (maybe). "The arrows may be pointed even more directly at Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. And they could be coming from more than one direction," The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny writes. "The Democrats have yet to unleash the sharp personal criticisms to the degree their Republican counterparts have against one other."

Obama wants to keep on the issues (no "knee-capping," he's promising), but The Boston Globe's Scott Helman identifies Obama's biggest obstacle: "despite how hard his campaign is working to highlight its differences -- he is vowing again this week to take her on more directly -- he and Clinton are simply not far apart on major issues. . . . That, analysts say, puts Obama in something of a box: If he and Clinton are too alike on substance and policy, Clinton's character should be his prime target -- but to attack that would undermine the unifying, positive message of his candidacy."

Take Iran (as Politifact.com does today): "Clear away the smoke and look beyond the attacks and you'll find they don't differ that much. Both say Iran's Revolutionary Guard supports terrorism. Both want more diplomacy and tougher sanctions to deter Iran's nuclear program. And neither is ready to give Bush authority to go to war."

At the MTV/MySpace debate, Obama was too busy playing defense to get sharp with Clinton. In the wake of his decision to include McClurkin -- a singer who has called homosexuality a choice that can be "cured" -- in his South Carolina gospel tour, Obama was pressed on the issue of gay marriage yesterday, the Des Moines Register's Jason Clayworth reports.

He may want to work on this answer: "You want the word marriage and I believe that the issue of marriage has become so entangled -- the word marriage has become so entangled with religion -- that it makes more sense for me as president, with that authority, to talk about the civil rights that are conferred" with civil unions. Come again?

Asked about his supposed new strategy, Obama said that the "politics of hope was not about holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya.' " And this (hardly sounding like a candidate who's locked and loaded): "This is not about me and her. It's about the American people."

To Camp Clinton, it's about "the politics of hope."

Expect former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., to continue to seek his own one-on-one with Clinton. "Democrat John Edwards is trying to turn the Democratic presidential race into a referendum on honesty and integrity, areas where polling has shown that voters are divided about Hillary Rodham Clinton," AP's Nedra Pickler writes. Says Edwards: "She continues to defend [the status quo]. And I don't think you can bring up the change this country needs if you defend a corrupt system that doesn't work."

The Democrats, at least, can agree to disagree with former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, R-N.Y. He shared his prediction yesterday that "Democrats are gonna change their mind about [Iraq] again," per ABC's Jan Simmonds.

And this line (just a little bit over the top, no, Mr. Mayor?): "It's not this happy, romantic-like world where we'll negotiate with this one, or we'll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we'll invite [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad to the White House, we'll invite Osama [bin Laden] to the White House," Giuliani said. "Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball."

Elsewhere in the campaign, the action was centered on New Hampshire, and some big Granite State endorsements. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the dean of the state's congressional delegation and perhaps the biggest New Hampshire "get" of the GOP race, endorsed former governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass.

After mistakenly calling Romney a Democrat (it's OK -- Romney has called himself worse), Gregg said, "if somebody had also said I'd endorse a former governor of Massachusetts for president of the United States, I'd say, well, I didn't think the Red Sox would win the World Series twice in my lifetime, either."