The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Washington

After a stormy couple of weeks, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton will attempt to right the ship on Thursday night at a campaign debate with her rivals. The increasingly combative Democratic candidates gather in Las Vegas for the televised debate with just seven weeks left before Iowa starts Americans down the path toward the November 4, 2008, presidential election. Clinton, a senator from New York, was widely seen to have stumbled at the last debate, on October 30 in Philadelphia, when her equivocating answers on Iraq, Social Security and illegal immigration prompted charges of double-talk from top rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards. In the days that followed, the Clinton campaign accused her male rivals of "piling on" her and talked about competing in "the all-boys' club of presidential politics" -- prompting accusations she was trying to play the role of female victim.