Krauthammer, Plouffe spar in college debate

3/31/14 1:33 PM EDT

Trading barbs, campaign lines and even some compliments, conservative columnist Dr. Charles Krauthammer and Barack Obama campaign mastermind David Plouffe entertained the George Washington University College Democrats and Republicans with a debate Sunday night on foreign policy, health care and the upcoming elections. 

Krauthammer dominated the night delivering lines and anecdotes drawing the most laughs and applause.  Though outdone when it came to one line zingers, Plouffe became especially animated on the topics of the Affordable Care Act and his specialty, campaign strategy for the upcoming 2014 and 2016 election seasons. 

In what got the biggest laugh of the night, Krauthammer called Chris Christie’s embrace of Barack Obama during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 as “more of a lap dance” than what the press described it at the time as a “bear hug.” 

“I think many Republicans are extremely upset with what was described in the press as giving Obama a bear hug,” Krauthammer said, noting that until the recent George Washington bridge scandal he considered Christie the 2016 frontrunner. “ I saw it slightly differently, I thought it was more of like a lap dance.  Not a phrase I would use on television, since the image is too disturbing.” 

Krauthammer went on to decry the “sorry state of revenge in New Jersey” when lanes of the George Washington bridge are used versus more classic moves like putting a severed horse’s head in the enemy’s bed. 

Plouffe said he doesn’t think Christie has been “fatally flawed” by the bridge scandal, only hurt, and that either way Hillary Clinton would be “the strongest front runner either party has ever had.” 

Both Krauthammer and Plouffe said that the Democratic nomination is all but Clinton’s, with Krauthammer joking that the 2016 Democratic convention “won’t so much be a coronation, the convention will be a worship service.” 

Krauthammer also warned that the best example of how potentially weak of a candidate Clinton can be is “sitting at the White House right now” and on the stage with him, noting that Plouffe maneuvered Obama from a relative unknown candidate to one who would beat the Clinton machine. 

Plouffe conceded that the 2014 midterm elections will be difficult for Democrats. 

“We’re playing a bunch of away games, we’re like a dome football team having to go play a playoff team in Green Bay in zero degree weather.  These are tough stakes,” he said. 

Plouffe advised Democratic candidates to pay attention to all sides of the spectrum and to voter turn out, to put their opponent on trial and show them as an unsafe alternative, and to not be defensive on Obamacare but rather go on the offense and show what would happen to healthcare if Republicans take over. 

Though Krauthammer called Plouffe’s 2014 analysis “brilliant" and said there's a reason he is in the "hall of fame" of campaigns, he grinned broadly as he ironically voiced full support for Plouffe’s advice that Democrats run on Obamacare. 

“I hope you do and that’s the only advice that I think their side needs,” Krauthammer said. “ By the way for those of you on this side of the aisle (pointing to the College Democrats), that was meant to be ironic.  When you say something ironic on television, 90 percent of the time it’s missed.  I’ve suggested to our producers that whenever I wander into irony that they put a notice under me on the screen ‘irony alert.’” 

On health care, Plouffe decried the Republican notion that the enrollment website is somehow a “portal to socialism” and that the facts don’t support the idea that the Affordable Care Act has killed the economy. 

“This Fox news version of the world...these things are not true.  And I think (Republicans) will pay a long term price for it,” Plouffe said. 

Krauthammer mocked the administration claiming 6 million people have signed up for health care, saying the White House seems to not know the “inconvenient number” of how many have actually paid. 

At root of the issue with Obamacare, Krauthammer said, is that people “have a sense they were ‘swindled’” by the president on the idea that they could keep their existing health care plans. 

Plouffe pulled out classic Democratic arguments for the health care law, ticking off new protections and services the law provides while noting that Republicans have yet to come up with an alternative. 

“I find it curious Republicans’ attitude denigrating the number, why not say ‘it’s great 6 million people are getting health care, but we have some ideas for how to improve or change the law,’” Plouffe said.