Debate rivals seek cracks in Clinton dominance

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton could be in the cross hairs at Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate.

But for Clinton, that's nothing new.

The senator from New York is the overwhelming frontrunner in all the national polls, and with just over two months to go before the primaries kick off, her Democratic rivals need to find a way to level the playing field.

Attacking Clinton could be the ticket, and Tuesday's debate provides a golden opportunity.

Seven Democratic White House hopefuls face off at Drexel University in Philadelphia at 9 p.m. ET. Former senator from Alaska Mike Gravel, who appeared at the earlier Democratic debates, did not meet this debate's fundraising and polling thresholds and was not invited.

The debate is the Democrats' first face-off since tangling at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire a month ago. Since then, Clinton has solidified her front-runner status.

Clinton tops the field in the national polls. In CNN's most recent compilation of national surveys, she was 25 points ahead of her closest rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, with former Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, 10 points behind Obama.

Clinton is also far ahead of her competition in state polls in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary, and South Carolina, which holds the first Southern primary.

But it's a much closer race in Iowa, the first state to vote, with Clinton leading Obama by only two points on one survey out this week and 10 points in another new poll.

Edwards is stepping up his attacks on Clinton. In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Edwards said Clinton is part of a corrupt Washington system.

And at a speech in New Hampshire that his campaign billed as a theme setter for the next two months, Edwards suggested that big donations from lobbyists would turn a Hillary Clinton White House into a "Democratic version of the Republican corruption machine." Watch Edwards file papers for the New Hampshire primary, call for political reforms »

The Clinton campaign responded by saying that "Senator Edwards' entire campaign has devolved into a daily routine of negative personal attacks against Senator Clinton."

Edwards and other Democratic candidates have attacked Clinton for her stance on policy, from Iraq to Iran to Social Security, but the Edwards comments criticizing her integrity appear to be a first in this campaign.

Obama has taken a more gingerly approach when it comes to taking on Clinton. A few weeks ago, in separate interviews, he told CNN's Candy Crowley and Wolf Blitzer that he needed to do a better job of telling voters how he differs with Clinton on major issues. It appears he's now starting to do that.

"Some Obama supporters think he's going to have to take a tougher line -- the question is whether he has the stomach for it," says CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley, adding that "Obama is clearly struggling to step up his game without looking desperate, without turning off Democrats without abandoning his 'politics of hope' theme, which the Clinton camp has been more than happy to throw back at him."

"Obama has raised the expectations for the debate, and that may not altogether be a good thing," says CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger, adding that "he has signaled very strongly that he intends to be sharper in his criticism of Hillary Clinton, so all eyes will be on him. The question is whether he can execute it well enough to keep Clinton from complaining that he's 'gone negative' -- a notion, she says, that would undermine the 'hopeful' politics of his campaign."

And that's just what the Clinton campaign appears to be doing. Hours before the debate, Clinton campaign chief strategist Mark Penn said in an e-mail to reporters that "considering that both Senators Obama and Edwards made their names by pledging to be positive, the last thing one would have expected was for either of them to go out and announce with pride that they were now going to go negative on a fellow Democrat."

The Obama campaign responded, with chief strategist David Axelrod telling Borger that "it's height of disingenuousness for these people, who run a hardened political machine, to turn around and profess that any legitimate exchange is out of bounds."

While the talk has definitely gotten tougher among the Democrats, it hasn't reached the level of sharp personal attacks among the Republican presidential hopefuls. In the last Republican debate, things got quite personal between the candidates. And they also used Clinton as a punching bag. But Republicans know that beating up on Clinton is a smart strategy and a good way to energize the party's base.

Will the Democratic debates turn into the slugfests we are now seeing on the Republican side? Democratic White House hopeful Bill Richardson, in New Hampshire on Tuesday, called on his rivals to cut out "negative campaigning." "You see how some of the candidates in our own party are starting to get negative," Richardson said. "We're not going to do it. We're going to talk about the issues."

"To all the Democratic candidates, let's stay positive," Richardson said. "Let's get rid of all this negative stuff that I'm seeing." E-mail to a friend

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