LAS VEGAS — Hillary Rodham Clinton, accused of playing the gender card in her quest for the presidency, began the Democratic debate here Thursday by talking about her wardrobe.
“This pantsuit, it’s asbestos tonight,” said the senator from New York.
Embattled for two weeks after waffling in Philadelphia, the presumptive Democratic front-runner spent much of CNN’s two-hour debate on the offensive.
She blasted Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards for equivocating on health care and chastised what she has called “the boys club” of her challengers for not putting a happier face on Democratic politics.
“We need to put forth a positive agenda for America,” Clinton said.
This time, Obama resisted saying whether he would support giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
His campaign and others have knocked Clinton for waffling on that issue two weeks ago.
When pressed, Obama finally said he would give illegal immigrants licenses to drive.
Gov. Bill Richardson agreed.
Clinton, Edwards, Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden opposed licensing illegal immigrants.
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich didn’t answer the question.
All except Kucinich pledged unconditionally to support whoever is the Democratic nominee in the general election. Kucinich said his support would come “only if they oppose war as an instrument of policy.”
Most agreed that the U.S. should hesitate before waging war with Iran.
Thursday’s presidential debate was the first ever to take place in Nevada.
Obama – whose home state of Illinois is one of the nation’s highest nuclear-waste producers – roused the audience with his opposition to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump 90 miles from Las Vegas.
“I don’t think it’s fair to send it to Nevada, because we’re producing it,” he said.
Richardson, the only Westerner in the Democratic pack, touted his opposition to the project “all my life, as secretary of energy and congressman.”
But Richardson voted for the 1987 bill that chose Nevada as the site for the proposed project.
He said Thursday that he wants to turn the remote desert flattop – on which taxpayers have already spent $9.5 billion – “into a national laboratory.”
Perhaps the liveliest part of the debate came when Clinton faced a question about whether she has exploited her gender as a political issue.
“I’m not exploiting anything at all,” she said. “They’re not attacking me as a woman. They’re attacking me because I’m ahead.”
The debate ended in the same fashion it had started: with Clinton’s wardrobe.
Does Clinton prefer diamonds or pearls? asked a University of Nevada at Las Vegas student in the last question of the evening.
The media and audience of political junkies groaned so loudly after the question that Clinton’s answer – “Both” – could barely be heard.
