Clinton Holds Back in Texas Debate

Last night, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton met for their 19th debate in Austin, Texas--an event sponsored by CNN and Univision.

Hillary was behind coming into the debate, and needed to attack Obama and keep him on the defensive last night.

But instead, she passed up several opportunities where she could have done just that. She focused mainly on policy differences with Obama, but did not really go after him enough.

However, there was one exception. Recently, the Clinton camp accused Obama of plagiarism when he nearly mimicked a speech by Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, who is also the Obama campaign's national co-chairman.

When the issue of this alleged plagiarism came up, Hillary said "I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words."

A few moments later, she came up with this zinger: "That's not change you can believe in, that's change you can xerox." This remark was heckled and greeted with boos from the audience, and you could really tell that she had rehearsed it ahead of time. You could also tell that she immediately regretted saying it.

Although this attempt did not go over very well, she really found her voice in her closing statement, where she talked about her perseverance and her emotional encounter with an American soldier who was wounded in Iraq.

If it weren't for that last statement, I would have proclaimed Obama the clear winner of that debate. But because of that statement, she made it a draw.

Obama really did what he needed to do last night. He made no mistakes, and to me, seemed much more presidential and confident than he had been in previous debates.

He had always been outmatched by Hillary when it came to debates, but he really came through, and prevented Hillary from getting the usual boosts from debates.

Hillary needed a decisive victory in last night's debate--like the one she had in New Hampshire. But instead, she drew even, and that's not good enough. If she keeps on pulling even, she will lose. She needs to find some consistent message that resonates with voters before it's too late.