The Note: Xerox Moment

Feb. 22, 2008 -- When you've spent 35 years getting ready for Day One, why not spend the rest of the 36th year (and even what might be the last 12 days of your campaign) continuing to talk about it?

The Texas showdown wasn't quite another California lovefest, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton brought out no new major messages or attacks. The internal debate seems settled: There will not be a dramatic new appeal by the candidate we were once told everybody heard of but nobody knew.

She kept up her general argument (experience matters) and one specific critique (Obama = Xerox) but kept acting like Sen. Barack Obama was her friendly, talented (if sometimes naughty -- copying off your friends!) little brother, and not an extremely serious threat to her political existence.

After losing 11 straight contests (and with polls tight in her two must-win states) she needed something game-changing in Thursday night's debate, with only that and an Ohio debate Tuesday standing out as big dates before March 4. It's hard to argue that she got what she was looking for.

"Was that a white flag waving over Texas?" AP's Ron Fournier writes. "Clinton ducked several chances to criticize Obama and repeatedly went out of her way to stress similarities in her next-to-last chance to corner the front-runner in a debate before Ohio and Texas vote."

ABC's Kate Snow writes that even after Clinton clamored for more debates, "she did not use the opportunity to strike a game-changing blow. And it was her final comment of the night -- after an hour and 40 minutes of debate -- that drew the biggest response."

That moment probably was the closest approximation of her poignant New Hampshire scene since her eyes started welling up in that diner on primary-eve. "You know, the hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country," Clinton said, in an exchange that was quickly YouTubed and fashioned into a fund-raising appeal.

(And she closed with a clever zinger: "We're going to be fine. . . . I just hope that we'll be able to say the same thing about the American people.")

But, writes Snow: "Given the tight nomination battle she finds herself in, some may read that comment as a poignant admission that she may not end up as the party's nominee." Said ABC's George Stephanopoulos, unless she turns things around fast, "That almost felt like the first draft of a concession speech."

Could her "no matter what happens" line have been a signal that she's willing to let March 4 settle this thing out -- that, if she loses one of her two must-wins, she won't split the party in a summer-long delegate battle?

"Clinton seemed to surrender, graciously," The Nation's John Nichols writes.

Asked about the exchange Friday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America," Clinton told Diane Sawyer, "I intend to win. . . . For us, it's not so much about what happens to each of us individually, but it's what happens to the people I see every day."

A few other nuggets from the interview: Clinton said she wouldn't buy into her husband's contention that Ohio and Texas are must-wins: "I don't make predictions." She said she has had "conversations" with former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., over the past few weeks. And she forget to check www.delegatehub.com -- she put the magic delegate number at 2,025, not the 2,208 the Clinton campaign is saying it is (if Michigan and Florida count).

At the debate, her sharpest words came over Obama's words -- the lines he borrowed from his friend and supporter Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass. "Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox," she said, drawing boos and hisses from the crowd in Austin.

(But who's the one whose message seems unoriginal these days? And if Obama is Xerox, what if Clinton is Hydrox: a more mature -- yet ultimately less successful -- brand?)

"It was not clear that Mrs. Clinton, in the toughest position of the campaign for her, had done enough to change the course of the contest," Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny write in The New York Times.

"Mrs. Clinton appeared relaxed at times as she made her case. At other points, she looked as if she could not wait to deliver punches or respond to Mr. Obama's remarks. Still, little that she said appeared to rattle him."

"Her goal was to undercut her rival's credentials to lead the nation," Wayne Slater writes in The Dallas Morning News. "But she had to do it without seeming disagreeable, and in the end, she seemed to fall short of the goal: raising enough questions about his qualifications to stem the Obama tide 12 days before Texas and Ohio vote."

The Wall Street Journal's Christopher Cooper and Amy Chozick found the moment "elegant", but add: "Still, the debate didn't seem to provide the much-needed turning point for the New York senator to slow the momentum of her Illinois rival."

As for Obama, he "was wonky and detailed enough to set heads nodding in Capitol committee rooms, but delivered probably the most effectively boring debate performance in recent presidential politics," Peter Canellos writes in The Boston Globe.

The stakes on Tuesday: The new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows a dead heat in Texas (Clinton 48, Obama 47), and Clinton with a slight edge in Ohio (50-43). "Differing demographic and political profiles in Texas and Ohio change pieces of the puzzle -- but both contests look close, with more than enough moveable voters to tip the balance either way," ABC polling director Gary Langer writes.

Among the warning signs for Clinton: "Obama beats Clinton in the perception that he's got the best chance of winning in November by 47-36 percent in Texas and 48-37 percent in Ohio."

"The closeness of the races in Texas and Ohio underscores the challenges facing Clinton over the next 12 days of campaigning as she seeks to end Obama's double-digit winning streak in their battle for the Democratic nomination," Dan Balz and Jon Cohen write in The Washington Post.

"Clinton advisers have expressed optimism about her prospects in the two contests, but the new polls suggest that the momentum Obama achieved in his string of victories has turned both into true battlegrounds."

The bar has been set (and won't move much lower than this position): Per the Times' Healy and Zeleny, "Clinton advisers have said Mrs. Clinton must win the Texas and Ohio primaries by at least 10 percentage points if she has any hope of catching up with Mr. Obama in the delegate count, particularly because he has shown momentum recently at picking up support from elected officials who count as superdelegates."

Toss in the "Democrats Abroad" primary and Obama now holds a 97-delegate edge over Clinton, per ABC's delegate scorecard, despite Clinton's advantage among the superdelegates.