PHILADELPHIA – Hillary Rodham Clinton stumbled badly at last night’s Democratic debate when she repeatedly refused to give a direct answer about whether she supports Gov. Spitzer‘s plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens – and got slammed by her opponents for evasive double-talk.
“I was confused on Sen. Clinton’s answer,” said Sen. Barack Obama, who backs the plan. “I can’t tell whether she was for it or against it.”
He added, “One of the things that we have to do in this country is be honest about the challenges that we face.”
Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut said a driver’s license was “a privilege, not a right,” and that illegals shouldn’t be allowed to get one.
Clinton shot back that “I did not say that it should be done,” prompting Dodd to counter, “You said yes.”
“No I didn’t, Chris,” Clinton insisted.
The Democratic front-runner said illegal immigrants are “driving on our roads. The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds.”
But she did not clearly say whether or not she backs Spitzer’s plan.
That prompted MSNBC moderator Tim Russert to ask, “Do you . . . support your governor’s plan to give an illegal immigrant a driver’s license?”
Again, Clinton wouldn’t respond directly, saying, “We want people to come out of the shadows,” and adding Spitzer is “making an honest effort to do it.”
“Unless I’m missing something, Senator Clinton said two different things in about two minutes,” said former Sen. John Edwards.
The heated exchange took place at the tail end of a two-hour debate at Drexel University.
The driver’s-license issue puts Clinton in a bind, because opposing giving them to illegals could alienate Hispanic voters and left-wing activists who are influential in the primary, while favoring the plan could alienate many moderate voters with whom the plan is highly unpopular.
Earlier in the evening, Obama and Edwards launched a tag-team attack against Clinton, pummeling her on her positions on the war in Iraq and her ability to take on the Republicans.
Obama said he would provide “sharp contrasts” on torture policy, trade and Iraq.
“[Leadership] does not mean changing positions whenever it’s politically convenient,” the Illinois senator said.
“She voted for a war, to authorize sending troops into Iraq and then later said this was a war for diplomacy . . . Now that may be politically savvy, but I don’t think it offers the clear contrast that we need.”
Edwards said voters needed to determine “who’s honest, who’s sincere, who has integrity . . . Senator Clinton says that she believes she can be the candidate for change, but she defends a broken system that’s corrupt in Washington, D.C.”
Edwards said of Clinton’s pledge to begin withdrawing troops without promising to bring them all home immediately: “To me, that’s not ending the war. That’s a continuation of the war.”