Electability makes its return to Dem primary as Clinton and Obama joust

After months of dancing around the issue, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) finally pushed electability to the forefront Tuesday.

 The issue makes its official entrance in the Democratic presidential contest about three weeks before the first votes are cast. In most of the early states, Clinton and Obama are polling first and second, respectively, but Obama appears to be making headway.

{mosads}Electability proved to be a defining reason for Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) nomination in 2004, even though his loss to President Bush showed how flawed such an argument can be.

The issue has also dominated the 2008 race because of Clinton’s supposed polarizing nature and Obama’s effort to campaign as a uniter.

 Still, it was the former first lady’s campaign that chose to put the issue on the table, looking to head it off in the final weeks of the campaign.

 Her campaign trotted out a CBS/New York Times poll and hit Obama for reportedly taking more liberal stances while running for state senator in the 1990s. On a conference call, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) talked about Clinton’s broad appeal.

 Obama’s campaign countered with former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.), who praised Obama for his ability to include new demographic groups in the political process and attract more down-ballot Democrats.

The Obama campaign sought to frame the back-and-forth around the issue of “crossover appeal,” with the candidate himself using the critical issue of healthcare as a way to distinguish his ability to work across the aisle from Clinton’s.

“The issue is really, How are you going to get it done?” Obama said in an afternoon conference call. “There are all kinds of pinpoint proposals out there gathering dust on a shelf because nobody was able to get it done.”

Obama, echoed by his surrogates, added: “Republicans and independents are more open to my message of change than they are of any other candidate out there.”

Daschle later used the term “crossover appeal” repeatedly, saying: “When it comes to purple states and red states, and when it comes to blue states, Barack Obama has that crossover appeal that I don’t think anybody else in the field has.”

 The poll cited by the Clinton campaign showed 63 percent of people consider Clinton the most electable candidate, while 14 percent pick Obama and 10 percent name former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.). Other surveys show a similar disparity.

 But Obama’s supporters said the results are misleading because Clinton’s name is known universally, whereas Obama is still a fresh face to most voters who are not in the early states.

 Daschle pointed to Obama’s recent gains in the Jan. 26 South Carolina primary, where he said voters are starting to get to know the first-term Illinois senator. And Obama made the argument that in early states, where voters have been able to compare his record to Clinton’s, “you see a very different result” than in national polls.

 Carnahan made reference to Obama’s record-setting number of small donors and ability to turn out large crowds at his campaign events. He said Obama also has an inspiring personal story to tell.

 Meanwhile, Clinton’s supporters pointed out that women, a presumably strong demographic for her candidacy, constitute a bare majority of the electorate and said her message has been focused on the middle class.

 Jackson Lee had some of the harshest words of the day, calling out Obama for a decade-old questionnaire in which he reportedly advocated a complete ban on guns.

 She accused him of changing his position on the issue — he now advocates gun control but not an outright ban — for political reasons.

 “We look forward to evolving as a public figure, but that evolving has to be based upon true evolving and not on the political winds,” Jackson Lee said.

Obama and Clinton have both polled consistently ahead of most of their potential Republican opponents in the general election, but Edwards often polls best of all in hypothetical match-ups against the GOP contenders. The Edwards campaign recently pointed to a CNN poll that showed him leading GOP candidates by wider margins than both Clinton and Obama.

 While Obama’s supporters passed on a chance to criticize Clinton’s down-ballot effect, Edwards backers were more blunt.

 “If we don’t have a good person at the top of the ticket, someone who can help stop the hemorrhaging in Missouri, then we’ll go red,” said Missouri state House Minority Whip Connie Johnson (D). “And it will affect state reps, state senators, treasurers, governors, everybody. … If Hillary comes to a state like Missouri, we can write it off.”

Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Iowa’s Drake University, said the electability argument has become a mainstay in presidential contests, and “both parties have this battle between purists and pragmatists.”

“They’re still fighting these battles in the party right now,” Goldford said.

But in the end, Goldford said, Democratic caucus-goers will support who they see “as their best nominee next November.”

“I think Democrats have finally gotten to the point where they are tired of symbolic or moral victories,” he said.