Behind the scenes of Clinton’s great debate

A couple of postscripts to last week’s Democratic debate -- not so much a debate as a chaotic interview of a gang of candidates in front of a Las Vegas crowd accustomed to prize fights and cheering for their favorite (Hillary Clinton) and booing the bad guy (John Edwards, when he criticized their favorite).

The low point came right at the end when Maria Luisa, a UNLV student, asked Clinton if she preferred diamonds or pearls. True to form, Clinton straddled the answer, saying she likes them both. CNN admitted the next day that a producer allegedly seeking to end the event on a light note gave the question to the student.

As an embarrassed Luisa explained on MySpace, everybody was asked to submit questions, including light- hearted ones. She had wanted to ask Clinton about Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a potential repository for nuclear waste, but at the last second was told to ask her pearls-diamonds question.

Later she wrote on MySpace: “Every question from the audience was pre-planned and censored . . . do not judge me or my integrity based on that question.”

Speaking of integrity, what in the world was CNN thinking when it booked its post-debate analysts to appear with Anderson Cooper? One was J.C. Watts, the former GOP congressman from Oklahoma. Fine, a token Republican. Another was Gloria Borger, an experienced pro.

The other two: James Carville and David Gergen. That’s right, two former aides of Bill Clinton.

Cooper neglected to mention in his introduction that Carville is a clear supporter of Hillary Clinton. He wrote an e-mail fundraising letter for her Feb. 22 -- “Hillary is the strongest candidate Democrats have” -- and on “Meet the Press” on June 3 announced that he was not only a contributor to her campaign but was going to vote for her too.

Now, that’s the kind of open mind you want analyzing her opponents.

What the polls measure, and don’t

There’s a new poll out in the Granite State by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center -- one of many we’re likely to see as interest grows in the early primary, likely Jan. 8.

This poll shows Hillary Clinton leading Democrats with 35%, Barack Obama with 21%, John Edwards with 15%, Bill Richardson with 10% and all the others in a single-digit bunch. For the Republicans, it shows Mitt Romney in the lead with 32%, Rudy Giuliani second with 20%, John McCain third with 17%, a surging Ron Paul with lots of money up from 2% to 7%, Mike Huckabee at 5% and all the others, including Fred Thompson, below that.

But that’s not the most important result. What’s most important is the little-noticed numbers revealing that with slightly less than two months to go before the voting, 48% of Democrats and fully 60% of Republicans remain undecided.

Now that’s a volatile setting, just made for stunning surprises in the nation’s first primary vote.

Gore Watch: The end?

Oh, no! No more Gore Watch?

No more seizing on every strand of hope -- his daughter’s wedding, his appearance on an NBC TV show, his sighting at a global environmental concert in New Jersey of all places -- that the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate would become the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate and save the party from more planted questions, who can get out of Iraq faster and who to tax more next.

“I don’t expect to be a candidate again,” he told the New York Times. Maybe they got it wrong and he really said, “I do intend to be a candidate again.” But it doesn’t look good for the Draft Gore movement.

It seems that Big Al has taken a part-time partnership in a Silicon Valley venture capital firm called Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he’ll devote time to investigating the potential of new green industries, especially the growth potential of start-up companies in the alternative energy sector.

Gore already has an advisory role with Google in the Bay Area, sits on the board of Apple and is founder of Current TV, the San Francisco-based cable channel you’ve never heard of because it’s devoted to viewer-created material.

Gore says he’ll donate his salary to promote national energy independence to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit foundation.

Maybe the Draft Gore movement can try again in 2012.

Rudy goes up

Rudy Giuliani put up his first TV ad of the GOP presidential campaign in New Hampshire the other day -- that’s 14,500 ad spots behind rival Mitt Romney.

Following the attacks of Sept. 11, the former New York mayor gained enormous national name recognition, but Romney has built poll leads in Iowa and New Hampshire anyway and is developing a conservative reputation in South Carolina.

Giuliani, who has been buying radio ads and direct mail, is counting on riding out an initial Romney surge in early states and coming on strong in later states like Florida.

The new 60-second ad, which will air for about six days at a cost of more than $300,000, shows Giuliani looking straight into the camera. “I’ve been tested in a way in which the American people can look to me,” Giuliani says.

A CBS/New York Times poll shows Giuliani trailing Romney in New Hampshire, 16% to 34%.

Arnold brings the heat

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets back in front of the camera (OK, as a politician he never really left, but still) as part of a new ad campaign geared toward pressuring recalcitrant members of Congress to move swiftly on legislation to lessen global warming.

The ad, to begin airing this week in 17 markets, was made by Environmental Defense and features Schwarzenegger, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana and Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah. All run Western states with wide areas of stunning natural beauty -- and the tourism-based economy that goes with that.

Schwarzenegger has been pressing the federal government on global warming, but also has his own well-heeled baggage on the issue. Frustrated with what they view as a lack of federal leadership on the issue, Schweitzer and Huntsman also have struck out on their own.

The reason for the ad campaign now? Environmental Defense wants to make sure the issue gets its due during the current election cycle.

Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this report.

Excerpted from The Times’ political blog, Top of the Ticket, at www.latimes.com/ topoftheticket.