Clinton Gets Standing Ovation at Debate, Gets Booed over Plagiarism Remark

Posted by D. Cupples |  At the end of last night's CNN debate in Austin, Texas, Sen. Hillary Clinton was interrupted by applause and finished with a standing ovation.  Check out the several-minute YouTube video below (from Taylor Marsh).  Oddly, the same clip at CNN's site fades out before the viewer sees the standing ovation, which was actually pretty impressive. 

Not all of the debate went Clinton's way. 

At one point, a moderator asked about accusations that Obama had plagiarized part of a speech by another politician, Obama's friend and campaign co-chair Gov. Deval Patrick (MA).  Obama said that it boiled down to "silly season"  on the campaign trail.

Clinton countered, and there was a small exchange:

BROWN: Senator Clinton, is it the silly season?

CLINTON: Well, I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. That's, I think, a very simple proposition.

(APPLAUSE)

And, you know, lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox. And I just don't think...

OBAMA: Come on.

(CROSSTALK)

CLINTON: No, but, you know, but, Barack, it is.

Because, you know, if you look -- if you look -- if you look at the YouTube of these videos, it does raise questions. (CNN)

Reactions are varying regarding the "change you can Xerox" line.  Obama supporters (and some right wingers) don't like it.  Hillary supporters seem to find truth in it.  Go figure!

Memeorandum has loads of commentary.

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Comments

[Adam]

I thought the standing O was for both of them, as the debate was over. But what do I know.

Obviously the "xerox" line bombed in the debate hall (the only boos of the night), but it was obviously a politically savvy move by Hillary. This morning nobody's talking about who's going to sit down with Raul Castro, or whether forcing people to join into the health plan is a good idea, or whether a freeze on foreclosures is a good idea, or whether the 2003 Iraq vote matters, or whether experience matters. She scored the sound bite.

[Damozel]

'Change you can xerox.' Yeah, that's pretty much how I see Obama's great wave of change.

[Flander Annapolis]

The standing ovation was for the debate not Hillary. I see now it is "silly season" , the MSM is turning on Obama and now wants to snnoint Hillary. Oh well, we will have to ride this mess out, as the Repubs gain momentum.

[Buck Naked Politics]

Adam and Flander,

I might be mis-remembering, but I thought the crowd started standing while she was saying her last word.

[Adam]

According to the video embedded here, it doesn't appear that the standing ovation begins until it is clear that Hillary's speech is done and the debate is over. Moreover, the most poignant part of her final speech (the part about the hospital) was well before the end - the last bit was nice but not especially inspiring or (see below) original.

Ultimately, of course, it's not very relevant why people were standing. "Silly season", indeed.

In the exchage that DCupples printed the transcript of, Obama actually said "Come on, that's not what happened..." before he got too quiet for me to clearly make out what he said (maybe "...and you know it" but I'm just guessing). This makes Hillary's next line ("...but, Barack, it is") make more sense.

A couple sources are noting that Clinton's closing speech borrowed bits from '92 Bill and from '07 Edwards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ7Cs3QvT3U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAYItnI-lPo

Again, this is how political speeches work. It's not a medium that lends itself to footnotes. This is not a big deal. It just underlines the absurdity of the attacks on Obama about this.

As I predicted, the media is coming around to criticizing Obama more than Clinton. There's nothing surprising about this, or worth getting upset about. All you can do is try to ignore it and focus on issues that matter.

I guess having written that, this entire post makes me a hypocrite. Oh well.

[Buck Naked Politics]

You were right about the media evening out. 'Sorry about the quote (plagiarism issue): I thought I copied/pasted straight from CNN. I must have flubbed.

[Adam]

No, you copied it straight. CNN just didn't include all of what Obama said (and indeed, some of it is unintelligible) in their transcript. I just threw it out there so that Hillary's response makes sense.

[JSmith]

Hillary’s final remarks were great. I really can’t recall her ever giving a speech segment that good before.

At the end though, it did sound an awful lot like an almost concession speech.

Too bad…., she should have won.

At this point though, I don’t see how Hillary takes Texas.

I truly hope Mark Penn and his lot never again make another penny from a Democratic donor for their vastly ridiculously overpriced useless consulting “services” that led to someone who should have won not winning.

Regardless of ones other opinions of Obama, it seems that there are three things about him and his campaign that make him an incredibly ridiculously hard opponent to beat. 1) His speeches, yeah, everyone knows about that one. 2) His web based, grass roots fundraising. Dean was pretty much the first to try it, but, well, the first attempt didn’t work well enough. Obama and his people made it work. In a national primary campaign, having more money is a major advantage. Obama hit the whole fundraising ball out of the park. 3) The Obama campaign ground game is truly amazing. It really is. The more complicated the process, the better they do. That is why Hillary keeps getting beat at the caucuses by the Obama people. Caucuses are complicated. Unfortunately for Hillary, so is the Texas primacaucus thing.

[Buck Naked Politics]

Time'll tell on this one, JSmith. We have at least one more political lifetime before March 4.