Suitably Flip

Democratic Debate Setting In City of *Brotherly* Love Promises To Offend Both Candidates

Can you stand the excitement?  Tonight (8 pm on ABC), you'll actually get to see Presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama share the same stage, engaging each other one-on-one in a high-stakes battle of feigned outrage and identity politics.

True, they've done this more than 20 times already, but don't you just get the feeling they've got something special and new to show us tonight?

No, me neither.  I hadn't really noticed the debate frequency fading away, but we've just enjoyed a solid 7 consecutive weeks of debate-free prime times, and in retrospect, the respite has been refreshing.

Of course, with that much time elapsed, each campaign's scandal well has had a chance to refill - Obama with his wacky reverend and getting caught badmouthing Pennsylvanians to a crowd of fancy San Franciscans, and Hillary with her pathological lies ever more prominently exposed.

Despite the fact that we've already seen this show more times than we care to remember, it could be an interesting night.  Public claims to the contrary notwithstanding, Clinton has to know that she needs to clobber Obama in Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary or the tide of superdelegates and other party so-and-sos will turn irrevocably (and probably fairly quickly) against her.  With that in mind, were it not for Obama's bout of inadvertently candid elitism (by which I probably mean uppitiness), we might've seen Hillary go into true kitchen sink mode in tonight's confrontation, something I don't think we've actually ever glimpsed with the naked eye, but which must be rather horrifying.  Instead, depending on which polls the Clinton camp is focusing on, they may believe Obama's guns and God rant was enough to secure her a convincing win in Pennsylvania without yet resorting to whatever rhetorical Hail Marys may constitute the eventual Clinton campaign death rattle.

We'll get to have to see that beautiful disaster at some point.  Just probably not tonight.

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Democratic Debate Setting In City of *Brotherly* Love Promises To Offend Both Candidates

Can you stand the excitement?  Tonight (8 pm on ABC), you'll actually get to see Presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama share the same stage, engaging each other one-on-one in a high-stakes battle of feigned outrage and identity politics.

True, they've done this more than 20 times already, but don't you just get the feeling they've got something special and new to show us tonight?

No, me neither.  I hadn't really noticed the debate frequency fading away, but we've just enjoyed a solid 7 consecutive weeks of debate-free prime times, and in retrospect, the respite has been refreshing.

Of course, with that much time elapsed, each campaign's scandal well has had a chance to refill - Obama with his wacky reverend and getting caught badmouthing Pennsylvanians to a crowd of fancy San Franciscans, and Hillary with her pathological lies ever more prominently exposed.

Despite the fact that we've already seen this show more times than we care to remember, it could be an interesting night.  Public claims to the contrary notwithstanding, Clinton has to know that she needs to clobber Obama in Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary or the tide of superdelegates and other party so-and-sos will turn irrevocably (and probably fairly quickly) against her.  With that in mind, were it not for Obama's bout of inadvertently candid elitism (by which I probably mean uppitiness), we might've seen Hillary go into true kitchen sink mode in tonight's confrontation, something I don't think we've actually ever glimpsed with the naked eye, but which must be rather horrifying.  Instead, depending on which polls the Clinton camp is focusing on, they may believe Obama's guns and God rant was enough to secure her a convincing win in Pennsylvania without yet resorting to whatever rhetorical Hail Marys may constitute the eventual Clinton campaign death rattle.

We'll get to have to see that beautiful disaster at some point.  Just probably not tonight.