The Note: Pillow Fight

Feb. 27, 2008 -- If this was the kitchen sink, maybe it's beyond time to call a plumber.

What may have been the last Democratic debate was a tense and substantive affair, featuring two candidates at the top of their games (and who know all the plays a little too well by now).

It was also as exhausting as it was exhaustive, with two candidates who at this point could recite each other's lines rote. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., set the fast-paced tone for the evening -- but it didn't look quick enough to match the steady countdown to March 4, not for a campaign that's winless since Feb. 5.

Clinton now has six days to turn things around, and as she seeks to do more than simply slow Sen. Barack Obama's train, she'll now have to do it without the benefit of again sharing a room with her rival.

Clinton's tools were all on display Tuesday night at Cleveland State -- attacks on campaign tactics, healthcare differences, trade, questionable supporters, and (of course) his relative lack of experience -- yet Obama, D-Ill., more than held his own.

Clinton "was forceful, determined and, in moments, clearly frustrated with her underdog status and what she seems to see as a deck stacked against her," ABC's Jake Tapper and Eloise Harper write. "Obama painted Clinton as nothing less than a whiner, saying her campaign tactics against him have been consistently negative."

She probed plenty of areas that she can (and will) continue to exploit, but knocked no balls out of any park.

The debate "did little to change the overall shape of the race, which may play to Obama's advantage but will also make the final six days of campaign crucial to both candidates," Dan Balz, Anne Kornblut, and Shailagh Murray write in The Washington Post.

"By the end of the night, there was little evidence that Mrs. Clinton had produced the kind of ground-moving moment she needed that might shift the course of a campaign that polls suggest has been moving inexorably in Mr. Obama's direction for weeks," Adam Nagourney writes in The New York Times.

"It has been a continued source of frustration for her and her campaign. That did not change Tuesday night in Ohio. Mr. Obama, if anything, seemed an even more elusive target."

If there's a comeback narrative left in this campaign, now might be a good opportunity to start unfurling it.

And it was either Clinton's great misfortune or grand strategic play that her most memorable attack targeted not Obama but . . . the news media. "If anybody saw 'Saturday Night Live,' you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow," Clinton said, oddly suggesting that getting asked questions first is an example of media bias.

"When you're behind by as much as Sen. Clinton is write now . . . you have to strike a knockout blow. And she didn't," ABC's George Stephanopoulos said Wednesday on "Good Morning America."

As for the complaint about the tone of questioning, Stephanopoulos said, "Sen. Clinton has a point: She's being treated like the frontrunner . . . Now that doesn't mean that it makes sense to complain about. You never get helped in a debate by complaining about the referee."

(For the record, in the two debates before Tuesday night's, Clinton got the first question in 14 of the 25 rounds of questioning, Jake Tapper reported on ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday.)

(And NBC's Brian Williams did offer Obama a couple of queries that Amy Poehler could have rolled her eyes at: "How were her comments about you unfair? . . . How did you take those remarks when you heard them?")

Beat-the-press has particular resonance with her embattled staff and supporters -- but it may actually have taken Clinton herself off-message. As closing arguments go, when was the last time you saw a press-is-unfair strategy pay dividends -- in a Democratic primary, no less?

"Poor Hillary," AP's Ron Fournier writes of the "new tactic in Tuesday night's debate: self-pity." He continues, "It is not unusual for politicians to feel sorry for themselves. Obama is not above whining about criticism and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has one of the thinnest skins in politics. But the New York senator's poor-me attitude punctuated a jarring week of shifting strategies from a desperate Clinton camp."

"It wasn't Clinton's most flattering moment; she seemed perilously close to declaring some sort of vast media conspiracy," Joanna Weiss writes for The Boston Globe. "But it seemed a calculated moment for Clinton, too. Last night, as she played the role of the frustrated challenger, she also tried to prove that righteous indignation can be a political asset."

Maureen Dowd pronounces the attack a dud in her New York Times column: "Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender."

In what might have been their last chance to face down each other -- and demand the collective attention of the entire media for at least a new cycle or two -- Clinton suffered from the same dynamic she benefited from back when she was ahead comfortably in the polls. Debates are graded on curves, with frontrunners controlling the arcs.

Newsweek's Howard Fineman: "Bottom line, on my scorecard: a tie at best, and certainly not enough of a win for Clinton to change the dynamics of the nomination contest, which Obama is poised to lock up."

Time's Michael Duffy: "Clinton tried time and again to draw sharp distinctions between herself and Obama, and argue that the differences matter; while Obama, turning aside most of the distinctions large or small, used his time to rise above the arguments, elevate the conversation and invoke the larger causes that dominate his campaign speeches. In this regard, Obama narrowly but unmistakably out-pointed Clinton, with the potentially decisive Ohio and Texas primaries less than a week away."

"Clinton dominated much of the debate -- for good or bad," Washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza writes. "She repeatedly sought to take the fight to Obama over his campaign tactics, his commitment to universal health care, his alleged naivete on foreign affairs, and even his initial unwillingness to use the word 'reject' when decrying the endorsement he received from Louis Farrakhan. But Obama successfully parried most of Clinton's offense and even turned some of her aggressiveness against her -- as when he painted the difference between rejecting and denouncing Farrakhan as part of the old politics he was running to change."