It's time to decide if playing the victim does or does not make your opponent look bad.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates were just 90-minute speeches delivered by the two candidates, on the same stage, back to back, with an opportunity for a 30-minute rebuttal speech. They were not a back-and-forth question and answer: it was more of a debate in the traditional, academic sense of the word.

Is this what Hillary really wants? I thought she didn't like people just "giving speeches".

I suspect that what the Clinton camp means when they say "no moderator", is therefore that Hillary gets to be moderator for a night, and occasionally interrupt to give herself free advertising.

I would love to see that as a bit of political theater, but there's nothing in it for Obama. By standing on the stage next to her, he lends her legitimacy--the stage equalizes them in a way that makes it appear that she still has a chance at the nomination. Obama shouldn't debate her anymore.

McCain didn't have any reason to debate Huckabee when they were the last two left. Obama's in the same situation.

The ostensible reason for the Democratic Party cancelling the NC debate was 'party unity.' Having them debate one another further is a wasteful exercise in polemics. Obama is moving on to fight the GE campaign against McCain. It is useless to fight in the endgame with a presumptive nominee, and giving more debates prolongs the illusion of a race.

Good for them, he should turn it down. After four debates with Clinton further debates just give rise to more illusions of a horserace for the nomination. He has no need to give Clinton more free airtime. She can pay for ads if she wants airtime.

Good decision. Hillary wants this whole process to take place on her terms. Her narrative. Turn on the TV and you will see every pundit or news person spouting Clinton talking points. Imagine the Clinton campaign writing their arguments and political spin on a chalkboard:

This has been a close race.
Obama can't win in November.
He can't win big states.
He can't get the white blue-collar vote.
He can't win the states Democrats have to win.
He'd be losing if we measured it by electoral college.
He'd be losing if our process was like the Republicans.
If you count FL and MI, he's losing the pop. vote.
He's afraid to debate Hillary.
There's a big question mark about Obama.
Obama HAS to win North Carolina and Indiana.

This is the discussion on the 24 hour news channels. It would be great if they were more independent news channels.

I've never seen a candidate who's winning by so much have to explain how he can possibly win at the behest of the candidate who is losing.

It is VERY smart of Obama to decline this offer...let's face it, Hillary has cleaned his clock in every debate so far. Obama is smart to avoid the issues and stick to the fluff. Ask many of the "new voters" he appeals to, they don't even know what he stands for--and most can't name a single accomplishment. An ambiguous sense of "change" sounds good, but what is it? The more he has to defend it the more empty it is.

I think this is clearly a bad idea for the Obama camp. She is a much more effective and forceful debater than he is. While this sort of political fisticuffs, I believe, is actually a good idea in the broader political context, it is not so for BO. Obama wants to win and this is a lose lose situation. By agreeing to the debate he lends legitimacy to the Clintonite notion that this campaign is still undecided, and if he agrees and looks weak and gets pummeled, it lends credence to her "I'm tougher" and more prepared gambit. This does not work to Obama's strengths, it can only cost him.

Its pretty clear that there have been more then enough debates. The Obama supporters have been telling us this for the last few debates. I remember all the posts telling us that there were 18 debates, no one wants any more. Now there have been 21 and its the same convincing argument, no one wants any more. The evidence is clear. Nobody wants these debates. Just take a look at the number of viewers.

California 4.9 million

Texas 7.6 million

Ohio 7.8 million

PA 10.7 million

You can see how the American public watched each debate in greater and greater numbers to express their desire that there be no more debates. Not only that, the public's desire for an end to the debates was sustained throughout the whole 90 minutes of the debate. Even against American Idol 96% of the viewers decided to stick with the debate to make it clear to the networks that they didn't want the debate to occur.

"The first hour of Wednesday's debate ranked first in its time period among Total Viewers, Adults 18-49 and Adults 25-54. Up against Fox's "American Idol" and an original episode of CBS' "Criminal Minds" at 9 p.m., the debate retained 96% of it Total Viewing audience, retained 100% of its Adults 25-54 audience, and grew 4% among Adults 18-49 from the first hour to the second hour."

Given this trend it appears that if there is another debate even more people will tune in and watch the whole debate to show the networks that the American people don't want debates. Enough already. No one wants debates.

excellent reply by the obama camp. obama needs to stop giving hrc a lifeline. she is no longer significant. the two have debated enough. you have to be living under a rock to feign ignorance of each candidate's stance on the issues at this point. if anyone is still asking for more debates, then my assumption is one is thirsy for more theatrics. the only debate that interest me and i hate to be presumptious here, and the majority of the voting population, is a debate between the dem nominee and mccain. now that is show worth watching.

it is time for obama do get down in the muck and roll up his sleeves and speak to the voters directly in the upcoming primaries. hrc is insignificant at this point. he has to continue fighting and racking up his delegates as the rules states!

The desperate trailing candidate -- in this case You-Know-Her -- always stridently demands more and more "debates." The confident leading candidate normally agrees to as few of these meat-market cattle-calls as possible. The trailing candidate has nothing to lose by a "debate" and everything to win. The leading candidate has just the opposite prospects: namely, everything to lose and nothing to win. Therefore, the fact that You-Know-Her keeps loudly braying for more "debates" validates her loser status, while Senator Obama's disciplined focus on other, more important matters, proclaims him the most likely winner.

Senator You-Know-Her lost any chance for this Vietnam Veteran's vote when she made a calculated decision to become Deputy Dubya Bush's willing dupe in 2002. You-Know-Her (a.k.a. "Buffaloed Girl") aggressively let a dyslexic dwarf chimpanzee make a monkey out of her authorizing Gulf-of-Tonkin-II in the Bay of Goats. Such an apalling lack of historical memory coupled with an inability to accurately calculate where America's true interests lie disqualifies You-Know-Her from the job she seeks.

Earlier this year, You-Know-Her cavalierly blew off us anti-quagmire veterans (along with millions of other sentient life forms) by sneering: "If you don't like my vote to authorize the Iraq war, then there are others you can vote for." So I voted for "someone else." So did enough other citizens to put "someone else" in the driver's seat as this nominating campaign season comes to a close. In any historic "change" election, the electorate wants "someone else." So this year, "someone else" will become President of the United States while You-Know-Her and John McBomb will have the rest of their declining years to meditate on all that they did to lose the biggest political prize of them all to a little-known "someone else."

An old saying admonishes us: "Take care what you wish for, because you just might get it." You-Know-Her did not value my vote or the lives of my friends and high-school classmates who perished in Southeast Asia. Neither did she give a moment's thought to all the Americans and Iraqis who would suffer incalculable losses due in part to her credulous calculating for nothing more than her own perceived political aggrandizement. So I did as she arrogantly suggested and gave my vote to someone younger with quite a bit more obvious intelligence, historical memory, and good judgment at his command. I only did as You-Know-Her asked. Now she can live with the consquences of her own badly caclulated wishes.

Senator Obama has two important primaries coming up in a little over a week. He needs to concentrate on winning as many delegates as he can in those. To that end he should be in those two states as much as possible, talking to the voters in those states. When he does that he gains voters.

Senator Clinton ran a good fight for the nomination, but made too many mistakes and lost. She needs to acknowledge that and move on.

Imagine if at the beginning we told you that the candidate that won NY, CA, NJ, OH, PA, MA, AZ, NV was unlikely to be the candidate, while the person that won in states like WY and ID and opposed at the very least a revote in FL of all states was the likely candidate? would you want that person to drop out? I should think not and you have a lot of nerve telling Mrs. Clintion and her voters (which exceed in number those that voted for Obama) to drop out.