Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama on Sunday brushed aside
a challenge from Hillary Rodham Clinton to debate
before the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North
Carolina.
On Saturday,
Clinton said she wants Obama to face off with her in a
debate without a moderator, Lincoln-Douglas style.
''I'm not
ducking. We've had 21'' debates, Obama said on Fox News Sunday.
''For two weeks,
two big states, we want to make sure we're talking to as
many voters on the ground, taking questions from voters,''
he said. ''We're not going to have debates between now
and Indiana.''
The more open
style of debating where each side presents an argument gets
its name from the famed debates that took place during the
1858 U.S. Senate race in Illinois between Republican
Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen Douglas.
Trailing in
delegates and the popular vote, Clinton has been stepping up
the pressure on Obama for more debates in advance of
primaries on May 6 in Indiana and North Carolina.
Obama was
planning to return to his home in Chicago on Sunday and had
no public events scheduled. Clinton was spending the
day campaigning in North Carolina.
Democratic
National Committee chairman Howard Dean said superdelegates
should make known their choices on the Democratic nominee
for president by the end of June. Ultimately, he said,
he believes their decisions will be based on who is
more electable, rather than necessarily who has the
most pledged delegates, because that is what party rules
stipulate.
''This is
essentially pretty close to a tie here,'' Dean said on NBC's
Meet the Press.
''What's going to
happen in the last nine primaries is, there's going to
be some feeling at some point that one of these candidates
is more likely to win than the other and that person
will get the nomination. I can't tell you who that is,
I have no idea who that is, but that's what's going to
happen,'' Dean said.
Dean also said he
expected the party to heal from the bitter primary race
if superdelegates make their decisions in June and that he
believes Michigan and Florida delegates will be
''seated in some way.''
''If you go into
the convention divided, it's pretty likely you'll come
out of the convention divided,'' he said.
The Democratic
Party stepped up its attack on Sen. John McCain, using a
new party ad to cast the presumed Republican presidential
nominee as a commander in chief who would keep troops
in Iraq for 100 years. The ad is part of a
half-million-dollar, three-week national cable television
campaign aimed at linking the Arizona senator to the
policies of President Bush.
The ad, set to
begin airing Monday, accuses McCain of wanting to remain
in Iraq for ''maybe 100'' years, a link to a remark McCain
made in January while campaigning in New Hampshire.
The ad concludes, ''If all he offers is more of the
same, is John McCain the right choice for America's
future?''
Since then,
McCain has repeatedly said he has no intention of extending
the war into the next century, but would keep a U.S.
military presence in Iraq much as the United States
has in Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
The Democratic
candidates have also acknowledged they would keep
non-combat troops in Iraq to ensure its stability. But they
have said they would begin withdrawing combat troops
promptly upon becoming president, a step McCain has
said would be precipitous.
The DNC has been
organizing a drumbeat against McCain at the state party
level to coincide with McCain's travels across the country.
Meanwhile, Obama
has become a Republican target. The North Carolina
Republican Party aired an ad, over McCain's objections, that
uses remarks by Obama's former pastor to portray Obama
as too extreme. The ad points out that the two
Democrats running for state governor have endorsed the
Illinois senator.
Freedom's Watch,
a conservative group, and the National Republican
Congressional Committee are running ads in Louisiana
criticizing Obama's health care proposal and linking
him to a Louisiana congressional candidate. (Hope
Yen, AP)
