Democrat rivals take aim at Clinton, Obama

DES MOINES -- The strengths and vulnerabilities of two leading Democratic presidential candidates were spotlighted in a debate Sunday as Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her electability and Barack Obama said he is ready to be president.

George Stephanopoulos, host of the 90-minute debate on ABC's This Week, noted remarks by Karl Rove, the departing White House political strategist, that no one going into a campaign with negatives as high as Clinton's had ever won the presidency.

"I find it interesting he's so obsessed with me," Clinton said, to laughter. She suggested high negatives — hers are in the high 40s in most polls — are inevitable for whoever becomes the Democratic nominee.

"The idea that you're going to escape the Republican attack machine and not have high negatives by the time they're through with you, I think, is just missing what's been going on in American politics for the last 20 years," the New York senator said.

Obama said the Democrat who wins the nomination will win the election but suggested Clinton is part of larger problems and attitudes that pre-date the Bush administration — including conventional thinking, backbiting, special interest influence and divisive politics.

"We're going to need somebody who can break out of the political patterns that we've been in over the last 20 years," said Obama, noting he is that person.

Former North Carolina senator John Edwards said that if Democrats "become the party of status quo in 2008, that's a loser." He said entrenched lobbyists "stand between us and the change America needs," and he has spent his whole life wresting power away from entrenched interests.

Clinton could signal she is not a "Washington insider" if she would stop taking money from lobbyists, Edwards said. Clinton has not agreed to do that.

Obama was next in the hot seat. Stephanopoulos quoted Sen. Joseph Biden as saying that "right now I don't believe (Obama) is" ready to be president and asked others if they agreed.