If imitation is the highest form of flattery, the Democratic presidential hopefuls sure do like each other — a lot.
As the candidates meet on debate stages across the country and speak to voters in town squares, they have adopted many of the same refrains.
Campaign staffers privately giggle as they compare the language used by their bosses and later adopted by their Democratic rivals. They sometimes accuse the other campaigns of stealing their stump lines.
But who was the first White House contender to talk about hope or to promise that he or she is the only candidate offering both change and experience? Some are clear to track.
On April 28, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois delivered what was later dubbed the “turn-the-page” speech to California Democrats, saying: “I’m running for president because the time for the can’t-do, won’t-do, won’t-even-try style of politics is over. It’s time to turn the page.”
Less than two weeks later, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said on MSNBC that she thinks voters “are so anxious to turn the page.”
Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has done same page-turning himself — in a July 24 e-mail from adviser Joe Trippi with the subject line, “Last night we turned the page,” touting his boss’s debate performance the previous evening.
The past few months have revealed several examples of the candidates lifting one another’s phrases.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have blamed President Bush for “leaving the money behind” for the No Child Left Behind education law and have lauded the troops for “doing everything asked of them.”
Elizabeth Edwards told Progressive magazine recently that Mr. Obama’s “hope” theme has a “familiar tone,” reminiscent of her husband’s 2004 presidential bid and added that Obama adviser David Axelrod once was on the Edwards’ payroll.
The copycat game has become something of a joke among campaign staffers.
An August Salon.com quiz matched candidates with their stump lines, and staffers for Mr. Edwards and Mr. Obama, quizzed by The Washington Times, weren’t sure whether Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards gave two quotes.
One, from Mr. Obama, talked about a “once-a-generation” moment to “move history in a better direction.”
The other, from Mrs. Clinton, included the need “to come up with innovative solutions to deal with the problems we face, because we cannot do it alone.”
Sound familiar? “The change that I’m talking about, the president … cannot bring about this change alone,” Mr. Edwards told voters in Perry, Iowa, last month.
One of Mr. Edwards’ most popular stump lines smacks of a theme that a one-time candidate first used in 2005.
“It is time for the president to ask Americans to sacrifice, to be willing to be patriotic about something other than war,” Mr. Edwards says.
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat who ended his fledgling presidential bid last October before becoming a declared candidate, had his version of this theme.
“This president has never asked us to come together as Americans to stand up,” he told New Hampshire Democrats in June 2006.
A year earlier, he said that a small percentage of Americans were dying in wars while “the rest of us are asked to do nothing.”
In May, Mrs. Clinton gave a speech on economic prosperity that decried the Bush administration.
“They call it the ownership society. But it’s really the ‘on-your-own’ society,” she said.
Mr. Obama used similar language first, in a speech honoring the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in November 2005.
“We know this as the ownership society. But in our past there has been another term for it — social Darwinism — every man or woman for him — or herself,” Mr. Obama said. “It allows us to say … tough luck … pull yourself up by your bootstraps … you’re on your own.”
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson got big laughs at an ABC debate last month, saying: “Senator Obama does represent change. Senator Clinton has experience. Change and experience — with me, you get both.”
Mrs. Clinton has her version, telling New Hampshire voters Sunday: “I know some people think you have to choose between change and experience. With me, you don’t have to choose.”
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware has mostly original material, perhaps because he got in trouble during his 1988 presidential bid for borrowing themes in his stump speech from British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. Mr. Biden had quoted Mr. Kinnock on the campaign trail but said in an “oversight” that he forgot to cite the politician during a debate.
In his new book, “Promises to Keep,” Mr. Biden outlined how he first was inspired by Mr. Kinnock’s words, then said he felt ill as he watched a TV news report that featured a split screen of himself and Mr. Kinnock.
“This looked terrible — and it couldn’t have come at a worse time,” he wrote.
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