Tactics change in high-stakes N.H. debates

With the Democratic presidential race turned upside down, a newly assertive Hillary Rodham Clinton used a Saturday-night debate to portray Barack Obama as a flip-flopper who cannot be trusted to deliver the change he promises.

Staggered by her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, the New York senator was the aggressor throughout a 90-minute session that showed the reconstituted candidate lineup in stark relief.

“Words are not action,” Clinton said, taking aim at the eloquence of Obama, who handily beat her in Iowa. “As beautifully presented and passionately felt as they are, they are not action. What we’ve got to do is translate talk into action and feeling into reality. I have a long record of doing that.”

The Illinois senator, who spent most of the debate in the position Clinton once occupied -- coolly above the fray -- responded evenly. Words, he said, can bring about change, the mantra of the Democratic race and a word uttered 62 times throughout the night.

“Don’t discount that power,” Obama said, “because when the American people are determined that something is going to happen, then it happens. And if they are disaffected and cynical and fearful and told that it can’t be done, then it doesn’t. I’m running for president because I want to tell them, yes, we can. And that’s why I think they’re responding in such large numbers.”

Obama received an unexpected defense from former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Iowa’s second-place finisher, who had been the most pugnacious candidate in the field; lately many of his shots had been aimed at Obama.

“He believes deeply in change and I believe deeply in change. . . . I didn’t hear these kinds of attacks from Sen. Clinton when she was ahead,” Edwards said Saturday night, as she looked at him stone-faced. “Now that she’s not, we hear them. And any time you speak out, any time you speak out for change, this is what happens.”

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson broke the tension with a joke. “I’ve been in hostage negotiations that have been more civil than this,” he said, drawing a big laugh from the audience at St. Anselm College. He urged the candidates to stay positive and reserve their fire for the GOP candidates.

In one of the more striking tableaux of the political season, the four Democrats shook hands with the six Republicans who remained onstage after their preceding debate at the urging of the moderator for both debates, ABC’s Charles Gibson.

The dynamic of the Democratic debate -- just three days before the next test in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary -- illustrated how much the contours of the race have shifted since Iowa voted.

Obama arrived newly adorned with a bull’s-eye on his back. Clinton, damaged by Thursday’s results, shed her placid front-runner’s demeanor. And Edwards, clinging to political life after failing to win Iowa, worked to finish Clinton off in New Hampshire in hopes of emerging as the sole alternative to Obama.

In the most animated exchange of the night, Clinton suggested Obama could not be trusted to deliver change because he had shifted positions on a number of issues since coming to the U.S. Senate. She said he campaigned against the Patriot Act, then voted for its renewal, and opposed the war in Iraq but voted for legislation to pay for it.

“You’ve changed positions within three years on, you know, a range of issues,” Clinton said. “So I just think it’s fair for people to understand that many of the charges that have been leveled not just at me, but also at Sen. Edwards, are not totally, you know, unrelated to the very record that you have.”

Obama struck the magnanimous tone Clinton once used in debate. “These are all good public servants, and everybody has great qualifications and has done good things,” he said of his fellow candidates. Then he added with an edge, “What I think is important that we don’t do is to try to distort each other’s records as, you know, election day approaches here in New Hampshire.”

Voters, he added, are looking for “folks who are going to be straight about the issues and are going to be interested in solving problems and bringing people together. That’s the reason I think we did so well in Iowa.”

There was little difference over issues.

On Iraq, all four candidates rejected a suggestion by Gibson that the increase of U.S. troops in Iraq had proved to be a success for the Bush administration.

While acknowledging a reduction in violence, Edwards and Clinton both said the original stated purpose of the policy -- to create an environment allowing for political reconciliation and progress toward a stable government -- had failed.

Richardson forcefully agreed. “First,” he said, “there is no military solution. There’s a political solution. Secondly, has there been progress in any political compromises or reconciliation between the Sunni, the Shi’a and the Kurds? Zero. Has there been progress in sharing oil revenues? Zero. Has there been any regional elections? Zero.”

A good portion of the debate played like a sober panel discussion at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The candidates were unanimous in agreeing they would strike against Osama bin Laden, believed to be hiding out in the mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, if there were clear evidence of his whereabouts.

Obama said he stood by his earlier stance that he would order an attack if he could not work out a plan with the Pakistani government to root out Al Qaeda. Edwards also said he would attack, and both candidates called for a renewed program to secure nuclear weapons in unstable places.

Richardson, a former United Nations ambassador, said he would first pursue diplomacy, including pressuring Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to resign.

Clinton criticized the Bush administration’s policies in the region and raised concerns over potential reaction to an American military strike.

She also implied she believed the U.S. government should play a strong role in internal Pakistani politics.

“If you remove Musharraf and have elections, it’s going to be very difficult for the United States to be able to control what comes next,” Clinton said. “I would try to get Musharraf to share the security responsibility of the nuclear weapons with a delegation from the United States and perhaps Great Britain.”

Later, answering a follow-up question about the risk of a nuclear attack on an American city, she endorsed a policy of unilateral military action.

“We have to make it clear to those states that would give safe haven to stateless terrorists that would launch a nuclear attack against America that they would also face very heavy retaliation,” Clinton said.

The night ended on a light note when the candidates were asked whether they had made any statements in earlier debates they now wished to take back.

Neither Clinton nor Obama answered directly, saying instead that the debates had given the Democrats a chance to differentiate themselves from the Republicans.

Richardson returned to a moment during an April debate in which he cited Byron White as his favorite Supreme Court justice.

“Well, then I find out that ‘Whizzer’ White was against Roe vs. Wade, against civil rights,” Richardson said as the audience laughed.

“You know, so that’s -- that wasn’t a good one.”

Edwards said he “made a horrendous mistake teasing Hillary about her jacket,” referring to a comment he made about the coral-colored jacket she wore during the July YouTube debate. “I just want her to know I think you look terrific tonight.”

Clinton smiled coyly and thanked Edwards.

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mark.barabak@latimes.com

scott.martelle@latimes.com