Reply #21: I'll respond to that.

[MGKrebs]

Clinton doesn't mind responding to a challenger on this issue because it is an opportunity to look stronger on foreign policy as well as security, clearly a major goal of the campaign. Not only that, they get to contrast the difference in experience levels (you can argue with that, but I'm sure they think she has more experience and they think most voters will think she has more experience).

As a bonus, Team Obama chooses to abandon their (now obviously naive) politics of hope for a minute while they get dirty with the politics of attack and counterattack.

In addition, as far as "frontrunner status" is concerned, if I recall Obama out raised Clinton last quarter, and given that this whole drama is being played out primarily for Iowa voters- where neither of them are the frontrunner, and Obama lives next door- that description doesn't hold much water.

<sarcasm alert>The one thing about all of this that is surprising is that Team Clinton has opened themselves up to criticism about the IWR vote. Even worse, they seem totally unprepared to deal with it, as if they expected that the other campaigns would just sort of ignore it. </sarcasm>