Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- To all who have shunned previous televised presidential debates, listen up. Tonight, pop a cold one, Tivo ``Grey's Anatomy'' or ``CSI,'' and catch the supper show live from Vegas: no cover, no minimum and no dancing girls, unless a certain candidate pirouettes around questions she'd rather not answer.

Las Vegas, home to as many boxing matches as showgirls, may prove the perfect venue for the next-to-last in a series of bouts that have gotten bloodier. There's a crack in Senator Hillary Clinton's vaunted electability since the last debate that may widen.

The more a frontrunner's status is premised on electability, the more a candidate forgoes appealing to old- fashioned voters who still care about where you stand and who you are, in favor of nailing down those who just want to get over the messy primaries. Forget about falling in love and just fall in line, the better to unite against the real enemy on the other side.

Electability is less stable than being ahead based on leadership, likeability and standing on the issues. Sensing a shift in barometric pressure, Clinton labeled a perfectly reasonable question from NBC TV's Tim Russert at the last debate ``gotcha,'' then did her own version of the Ali shuffle to get off the ropes.

Afterward, she accused the all-boys club of ``piling-on'' for challenging her positions, or lack of them. When the little woman tack didn't work, she switched to a Trumanesque ``she can stand the heat.'' Yet she forgot to tell her husband, who said she'd been ``Swift-boated'' and last weekend in South Carolina that ``those boys have been getting tough on her lately.''

Glass Jaw?

The hyper-defensive mode of her staff and husband make you wonder if the candidate has a glass jaw. How weak do those who know her best think she really is that they have to shield her from any more exchanges like one about her husband writing a letter to the National Archives asking that papers relating to her time as first lady not be released until after the campaign.

Defensiveness has extended to putting ordinary folks up to posing canned questions at Q&As, one of the few genuine events left in modern politics.

It's a risky gambit. If people find out about the artifice, they start asking what else is inauthentic about the candidate. Democrats had a field day with President George W. Bush's stage management, what with fake FEMA press conferences, right-wing journalists paid by the administration to write fawning articles, and a faux-reporter assigned a seat in the White House press room.

Two Old Buddies

One attempt to script a voter back in April came to light recently when Iowan Geoffrey Mitchell said he was asked to pose a question to Clinton about standing up to Bush on Iraq. Mitchell, a minister, was wary and declined. He said the Clinton staffer then went off looking for someone with fewer scruples.

The campaign didn't deny the incident happened but contradicted Mitchell's account with a more innocent one, where the suggestion emerged from a discussion between two people who knew each other. Mitchell says he'd never met the staffer before that moment.

Last week, Grinnell College undergraduate Muriel Gallo- Chasanoff, writing in her school newspaper, said she asked a question at an event at a biodiesel factory in Newton, Iowa, that was suggested by a Clinton staffer. The staffer opened a binder to a page of eight prepared queries, assigning her the one that had ``college student'' next to it, she said.

News to Her

Clinton said both incidents were ``news'' to her, yet isn't it curious that in a crowd of 300 people, Clinton had the good fortune to call on Gallo-Chasanoff.

And now Matt Drudge, who has not been unfriendly to the Clinton campaign, reports that CNN's Wolf Blitzer, one of cable's milder moderators, was told during pre-debate back and forth not to ``pull a Russert'' (Russert now standing for any question for which there is no pat answer.)

The worst part of the electability issue is that it cuts short the discussion of who is the best candidate. If anyone has asked whether we want to be like Argentina in our politics, or how a Clinton dynasty might differ from previous ones like the Roosevelts, Kennedys or Bushes, I haven't heard it.

Columnist Mark Shields jokes about the prospect of Bill Clinton hanging around the West Wing all day with nothing to do. The more disturbing thought is his hanging around with something TO DO, an actual ``two for the price of one'' in the Oval Office. The person a pillow away doesn't need any actual designation of power when he's already held the exact same job.

Shouldn't We Talk?

A wife succeeding a husband in the White House is a first- in-a-lifetime possibility in America. Shouldn't we at least talk about it? It's different from Bush father and son. George H.W. Bush didn't move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. after his son was elected. He's spent more time jumping out of airplanes than in the Oval Office giving advice.

Tonight, as with so many other glitzy Las Vegas evenings, there will be too many extras on stage, few of whom bring even the pizzazz of Wayne Newton or Siegfried and Roy. The format remains a gift to the best memorizer. Still there will be more slugging than in previous encounters and maybe a low blow. Someone will surprise. Someone might get knocked out.

It's the most excitement this campaign has seen. If it isn't quite the title bout, at least the match no longer seems fixed.

(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 15, 2007 00:12 EST