I did an insanely long segment (well, long by TV standards) of 15 minutes this morning on CNN's Reliable Sources about the now-infamous ABC Democratic presidential candidates debate and the NYT story about the Bush administration wooing retired military pundits to push their point of view on TV. Here is the part dealing with the ABC debate - I broke it into two clips, below. Oh, and the Huffington Post did an analylsis of the past few debates and found that the ABC debate was far more biased, and far more scandal-question-prone, than any of the other recent ones.
But, tonight was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's chance to slow down Obama's momentum. That didn't happen. Both candidates did well and I would say he at least equaled her throughout the evening. Obama didn't take the negative bait and handled himself well. Very confident.
The xerox line from Clinton was a dud. The negativity doesn't work.
Again, two strong performances. But, Clinton needed more. Her campaign made a very big deal about the debates -- as if she would dominate. She didn't get the boost we were led to believe she needed.
9:40 PM: A philosophical question at the end from Campbell Brown. Ugh. Always some dorky question to finish up. Obama speaks of the trajectory of his life. Clinton reminds us that she has had rough times.
9:28 PM: Okay, Obama hit that McCain answer out of the park. And, another break.
9:18 PM Obama turned the "Ready on Day One" attack into a discussion about Iraq. That is truly Clinton's achilles heel. Whenever she wants to talk about being Commander in Chief, she needs to deal with her vote on Iraq.
9:08 PM Break time. I've written this before but it is actually sad that after all those 35 years of experience, Hillary Clinton is stuck attacking Obama because of his speeches. It's just sad.
9:04 PM: Obama responded to Hillary's personal attack by talking about his health care plan. Class act.
9:01 PM: Hillary goes negative, big time. Obama repeatedly refused to take the bait, refused to criticize Hillary. She responded by publicly accusing him of "lifting whole passages" from other people's speeches, which is an outright lie. She actually sneered when Obama said we shouldn't be tearing each other down, we should be lifting the country up. She clearly made the decision to go negative. And she looks desperate. And sounds nasty.
8:58 PM: Obama is asked about the Clinton campaign's charge of plagiarism. Again, he's handled it well. Suggests that when things like this come up it is "silly season." We shouldn't be spending time tearing each other down...we need to spend time building the country up.
More after the jump...
8:53 PM: Obama agrees actions speak louder than words...and lists his accomplishments over the past 20 years. Senator Clinton has a fine record....and he doesn't want to denigrate it. Clinton has said "let's get real" as if people who support Obama are delusional..goes on to list all those supporting him. He is handling this quite well. Bring the country together and stop the endless bickering or we won't get anything done in Washington. It's not just a matter of policy positions...we need to inspire the American people to get involved and get beyond divisions...very good response.
8:50 PM: Clinton gets asked about her criticism of Obama. Can she say he has no substance after the past 45 minutes, John King asks? There are differences, she says..."I do offer solutions"...part of my life over the past 35 years. She's been working "to make a difference." Nasty dig at a Texas State Senator..and actions speak louder than words.
8:46 PM: A break. So far, this debate has been fairly low key....very issue focused. And, Clinton and Obama agree on most of the issues. And, as I have said many times, our candidates are so much smarter and better than anything we've seen on the other side -- especially John McCain. Too much applause.
(Just a reminder that your host for the evening, CNN's Campbell Brown, is married to Dan Senor, who was Bush's spokesperson in Baghdad, a FOX News contributor and an adviser to Mitt Romney)
8:21 PM: Hillary's white fringe on her collar is a big mistake. It's distracting. You don't wear clothes on TV that distract from your face. Small point, but I'm not the only one who noticed - fashion savvy female friends have weighed in as well.
8:20 PM: Why not talk to Raul Castro? We met with Soviet dictators, and we meet with Chinese dictators. You're trying to tell me that Raul Castro is worse than the Chinese and Soviet communists? Come on. 8:12 PM: Questions start after the longest opening statements to date.
Clinton and Obama are debating tonight in Austin -- one of the coolest cities in the country.
John and I will be live blogging. But we probably won't dissect every question...
The Clinton campaign has really been looking forward to debating. They're hoping to throw Obama off. We'll see how it goes.
I decided to use the fun tag-cloud tool and check out what words were most used in the recent Democratic and Republican presidential debates. I have no idea if this tells us anything. Just thought it would be fun.
Here is the Democratic debate from the other night.
Bill Richardson is the governor of New Mexico, in case you didn't know.
Dennis Kucinich and Gravel are just annoying. Yeah, I get it, some of you like Kucinich. And that's nice. Joe likes his dog Boomer too. It doesn't mean he should be on stage with the real candidates. Kucinich has zero chance of winning, as does Gravel - they shouldn't be on the stage taking time from the serious candidates. Though, oddly, and disturbingly, a number of us at our debate party last night found ourselves agreeing with Gravel repeatedly. It was creepy.
Hillary. Did quite well, I thought. And I say that as someone who has increasing worries about Mrs. Clinton as president. She was out there, in a good way, on the gay question (as I wrote last night), and overall came across as smart, poised, and presidential. Again, I still have growing concerns about who we're really electing as president, Hillary or Mark Penn. But she did well last night.
Obama. He was good. I thought he was better than last time. He seemed awfully young in the last debate. In this one, I thought he was smart, mature, and very "vice presidential" if not presidential. I'm hearing from more and more people that they'd like to see a Gore-Obama ticket in 2008.
Edwards. I don't think Edwards did very well. I don't think he got much air time compared to Hillary and Obama, and was just kind of missing during the debate - though the few times he did talk, I thought he looked and sounded good. Still, it was Hillary's evening, not Edwards. I actually just checked MyDD and they've got the number of minutes each candidate got:
Biden. He actually did really well, and we don't even like Biden. I thought his passion, especially about Darfur, whether real or concocted, came across as true and compassionate. You got the sense he believes in something.
Dodd. I still really like him. He's never gonna be president, but I like him. As for Richardson, he just doesn't come across as though he's really there - it's like watching a hologram of Bill Richardson.
John Edwards is gaining some street cred, and fast. More from Markos.
Quick Background: FOX News, the GOP propaganda organ, is hosting the first debate for the Democratic presidential primary. Why would anyone pick a station made up of far-right bigots who hate everything this country stands for to host the first Democratic debate? Good question. And Markos is asking it.
