Nasty Debate

Hillary Clinton showed her nasty side tonight in the CNN debate. And let’s be clear. It was very nasty.

She said that Barack Obama represented a “slum lord.” As the nastiness progressed, she joked that “we are just getting warmed up.” She complained that the problem with Obama was that “he wouldn’t take responsibility for any vote,” an assertion that drew hisses from the crowd. (I predict that line will hurt her with African-American voters.) She misrepresented Obama’s statement on Ronald Reagan and on Republicans in general.

Instead of running 30-second hit commercials on television, she decided to launch the hits herself.

If she says these nasty things about Obama in public, just imagine what she says in private!

Obama was on the ropes all night. He tried to be introspective and thoughtful. She went for the jugular. Her performance reminded me of Mike Tyson.

She struck an all-knowing, smug pose that bordered on insulting. She slashed and burned, for reasons that go beyond political positioning. It is clear that she wants to destroy Obama.

Give credit to the CNN team for trying to keep the debate on actual issues. But each time Joe Johns or Wolf Blitzer would try to steer the debate to those issues, Hillary would steer it back to the gutter.

Hillary will probably get the Democratic nomination. Her coalition of women and Hispanic voters will likely win the day in California and New York and most of the rest of the country. So this is what Republicans have to get ready to compete against.

We need to get ready for a nasty campaign from the Clinton forces, of which she is the indisputable leader. She showed her nasty side tonight. And it wasn’t pretty.