Experience versus inspiration?

EJ Dionne offers an incisive analysis of what he calls Hillary's moment of great peril, as the campaign got interesting again at just the wrong moment for the long-time front-runner. As Dionne says:

if Obama, with his soaring and idealistic rhetoric, has been more theme than pudding, Clinton's campaign has been more pudding than theme.

Obama's broadside against "the same old Washington textbook campaigns" does score an effective hit against the guarded tactics and caution of his opponent. (But at least, the Clinton campaign pulled back from what looked like a potentially fatal flirtation with 'going negative', which would surely have played to Obama's strengths with primary voters, by giving him the moral high ground to go with his recent momentum).

Many Democrats' priority will be to pick a winner. But the contrasting strengths and weaknesses of the front-runners make the balance of risk a more open question than it had seemed. The Des Moines Register's endorsement may well capture the conundrum faced by undecided Democrats in trying to weigh experience and inspiration.

Indeed, Obama, her chief rival, inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence.

Perhaps the experience card will still prove trumps for Hillary Clinton - but that may depend on playing it less defensively and with a smite more inspiration too.