In Indiana, a debate for debate ensues for presidential hopefuls

Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to debate in Indiana. Her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, isn’t so sure. And nothing else is certain right now.\nOn Friday, Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign accepted two offers to square off with Obama. But after moderators and Clinton pounded Obama on his recent stumbling points at a debate in Philadelphia Wednesday, the Illinois senator’s campaign said he isn’t so sure more debates are necessary.\nComplicating matters, Gary Mayor Rudy Clay, who on Thursday proposed one of the debates, changed his offer just a day after he extended it. Clay, an Obama supporter, said he would rather see the candidates come to Gary for a question and answer session on the same night, but not share the stage together in a debate.\nThe other offer comes from the Indiana Debate Commission. On April 1, the nonpartisan group invited the two candidates to debate in Indiana.\nThis political jostling comes the same day a new poll was released putting Obama ahead of Clinton by 5 percentage points in Indiana’s key May 6 primary.\nIn a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, Clinton’s national spokesman Howard Wolfson said the New York senator and former first lady views the proposed debates as a way to air important campaign issues with Hoosier voters.\n“We are very much looking forward to the Indiana primary and very much looking forward to having a debate with Sen. Obama in Indiana,” he said.\nKevin Griffis, Obama’s Indiana communications director, said the Illinois senator has not yet decided whether he will participate in another debate, though the campaign surely has reservations.\n“We’ve had 21 of these debates now,” Griffis said. “And I think we want to use our time as much as possible to be there to make our case directly to Indiana.”\nGriffis also railed against the “negative, destructive politics” of Wednesday’s debate \nin Philadelphia.\n“Sen. Clinton spent most of that debate launching misleading attacks against Sen. Obama,” he said.\nIn that debate, the moderators spent a great deal of time asking Obama questions about his recent political gaffes, including his comments that people in small towns “cling” to guns and religion in times of economic hardship.\nThe debate has been widely criticized by the Obama campaign for not focusing on substantive issues.\nFor this reason, Clay, who leads the largest city in Obama-leaning Northwest Indiana, decided to rescind his offer to play host to an Indiana debate, he said. The mayor said he wants the candidates to focus on “urban issues” – solutions to poverty, decay and economic development that are unique to densely populated cities. A full-fledged debate could deflect the candidates’ attention away from the issues and onto personality clashes and political wrangling, he added.\nOn Friday when Clay watched a tape of Wednesday’s debate, “a red bug went off and said to me, if we have a debate, we would discuss other issues than urban issues,” he said.\nThis shift has caused the Clinton campaign to reconsider its offer to appear in Gary at Clay’s invitation, said Ben Kobren, a spokesman for Clinton’s Indiana headquarters. \nOn the heels of the debate announcements, a new poll of likely Hoosier primary voters gives Obama a 50 percent to 45 percent lead over Clinton. Five percent of the 578 likely Democratic voters surveyed were undecided. The poll has a 4.2 percent margin of error. \nThe new data, which was collected last week, hints that Obama’s “bitter” comments haven’t changed the minds of many Hoosier Democrats.\nThe phone survey also asked likely general election voters – Republicans, Democrats and independents – about a matchup between presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and the two Democratic candidates. McCain beats them both, leading Obama by 7 and Clinton by 11 percentage points. Five percent of voters were undecided for both tests and the margin of error was 2.8 percentage points. \nThe survey was commissioned by the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at IU-Purdue University Fort Wayne.\nCurrently, Obama leads Clinton in pledged delegates 1,644 to 1,498. Both are short of the 2,025 needed to clinch the nomination.\nOn Tuesday, Pennsylvania Democrats go to the polls in that state’s pivotal primary. If Clinton wins, which most polls predict, Indiana will be the next great battleground for the two presidential candidates. It will be the first time in some 40 years that Hoosier voters have had any real say in a primary race.