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And now the end is near, and so she'll face the final curtain

James Forsyth

Friday, 22nd February 2008

Hillary Clinton’s critics have always charged that she would do anything to win, a charge that her campaign has bolstered by some of its actions. But last night, Hillary showed that she wasn’t prepared to do anything that would permanently damage the Democratic Party—of course, if she did do this she would also be hurting her own legacy.

In the penultimate debate before the must-win votes in Texas and Ohio, Hillary hardly went after Obama at all. Indeed, her ‘fiercest’ attack was a rather lame joke about the plagiarism allegations surrounding him. Nothing she said last night will help John McCain beat Obama in November.

If Hillary is to make this race continue all the way to the convention, she needs Obama to stumble. But her debate performance suggests she isn’t prepared to slide in and tackle him. Rather she is going to keep her knees clean and just wait and see if he trips himself up, something there is little sign of him doing.

The extent to which Hillary is determined to take the high road became clear in her final answer (video below) when she delivered what seemed to many like a farewell address. After last night, it seems likely that she’ll drop out if she doesn’t win at least one of Texas or Ohio and thus maintain her dignity and her chance of replacing Ted Kennedy as the liberal lion of the Senate.

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TGF UKIP

February 23rd, 2008 12:31pm

Another reading of this could be that their polling shows that the Clinton "attack dog" ruthlessness is rebounding so St Hillary takes the high road and we can probably expect more tears as well. If the Clintons know too that there's more negative stuff about Obama waiting to come out in the media, all the more reason for the sickly sweet.