Clinton, Obama Lead Feisty Pack At Democratic Debate (UPDATED)
The Democrats held another debate — and more than ever one thing was clear:
The front-runners Senator Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (seen above in a photo taken in much friendlier times) are increasingly seen as….being positioned as…and gaining the stature of…well, front-runners. They are solidifying their status.
There may be an occasional stumble, but both Senators are improving with each debate. And if there is an occasional stubbed toe (notably by Obama), the two Senators and the Democratic field in general are learning from increasingly robust and wide-ranging debates.
In fact, Republican Presidential front runner former Mayor Rudy Giuliani is already predicting a Clinton-Obama ticket. He told London’s Daily Telegraph:
“I think it’s going to be a Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama ticket,” he said during a campaign stop at Sparky’s One Stop, a petrol station in the village of Stanhope (population 488), on a sweltering day in rural Iowa.
“They will run together because Barack Obama has had such a good showing and it’s going to be very hard for her to deny him a place on the ticket.”
But although many Democrats view a “dream ticket” of the aspiring first woman president and the first black vice-presidential candidate as unbeatable, Mr Giuliani predicted that he could see them off.
And, indeed, a few things were clear if you watched the debate:
(1) Obama started off the campaign with a reputation of a candidate brimming with charisma on the stump. It actually has taken him a while to transfer that lightning in a bottle to come across on the boob tube (a phrase that does not refer to Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”). He comes across better with each debate.
(2) Hillary Clinton started off the campaign as someone charisma challenged, tending towards sing-songish, somewhat boring statements. BUT she has learned and learned quickly and, in terms of content, political positioning and her image on the tube, is now coming across as a highly-competent, thoughtful and tough-talking option for voters. Note the word “competent.” She is morphing into a politician who increasingly comes across more like the world’s past great women leaders than as a Senator who is the wife of a former President.
Note this comment from Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online’s The Corner:
In response to more than a few answers tonight — on Iraq, on China — I’ve said, “she sounds reasonable.” If I were a normal America[n], I think I’d really think that.
That’s really hard to admit. I still have both “Clinton Hater” and “Vast-Right-Wing Conspiracy” cards in my wallet.
ADVICE TO REPUBLICANS: Many GOPers are openly wishing to have Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate, figuring she has not shown that she can go beyond a certain point in the polls and is too polarizing a figure to win. But she is showing that she can adapt and change her image. She would not be the first: Richard Nixon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bill Clinton were agile in altering perceptions voters had of them (Nixon later lived up to the first impression).
Ms. Clinton may not be everyone’s cup of tea (Rush and Sean drink other brands) but it’s clear she will not be a pushover and has the potential of attracting female voters, independents, Democrats not enamored with their party’s progressive wing and perhaps even some Republicans who want to see their party “clean house” via a defeat in 2008.
(3) Senator Chris Dodd is also flowering in the debates, but you could bet money that he’s more likely to be Vice Presidential or cabinet material.
(4) John Edwards remains charismatic but you watch him and start to conclude: this not may be his year (again). Without Obama and Clinton in the race, he might be a front-runner.
(5) And it may not be Obama’s year, either. There’s a sense that Obama is where Senator John F. Kennedy was in 1956: someone who’ll come close but not clinch it. As Giuliani suggests, he could wind up as a Vice Presidential candidate with Clinton, making it a truly historic ticket. You get a sense that he is indeed the wave of the Democratic Party’s future — only 2008 may not be that future.
Obama found himself under attack at the debate — and handled it skillfully. The New York Times:
At a debate here at Soldier Field, where the candidates stood outdoors and sparred more vigorously than in many of their previous encounters, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut derided as “irresponsible†Mr. Obama’s plan to send the military into Pakistan to pursue terrorists if the Pakistani government failed to act on its own. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York later echoed the criticism.
“I think it is a very big mistake to telegraph that,†Mrs. Clinton said, adding, “You can think big, but remember you shouldn’t always say everything you think if you’re running for president, because it has consequences across the world.â€
Mr. Obama drew large applause when he struck back at the criticism, saying, “I find it amusing that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism.â€
Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza sees the debates as creating a new split within the Democratic Party:
The Democratic field split into two factions Tuesday night at the AFL-CIO forum in Chicago, with Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Joe Biden (Del.) and Chris Dodd (Conn.) on one side and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) on the other.
Time and time again Biden and Dodd faced off against Obama and Edwards on foreign and domestic policy.
Dodd called Obama’s willingness to consider the possibility of a potential attack inside Pakistan “wrong”. Biden added: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts.”
Obama retorted — quite effectively — that he found it “amusing that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster… are now criticizing me for making sure we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war on terror.”
Biden later called out Edwards for the latter’s insistence that he alone among the candidates on the stage had fully supported unions. “It’s not where you’ve been in the last two years, it’s where you were in the six years in the Senate,” Biden said.
Edwards avoided a direct rebuttal, perhaps loath to elevate Biden by attacking him.
And Cillizza has a prediction:
Expect the spin out of the debate to center on these two groups. The Obama/Edwards allies will paint it as a choice between change and more of the same. Supporters of Clinton/Dodd/Biden will cast it as experience versus inexperience.
We don’t pretend to know who’s right in that spin zone; in truth, each side has a set of valid points.
What we do know is that Biden and Dodd helped Clinton tonight. They took shots at her rivals and withstood the criticism that came back at them. That allowed her to generally avoid any direct barbs from her rivals and kept her from getting down and dirty by engaging in a heated back and forth.
Once again: Republicans wishing for Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee in 2008 might be careful what they wish for. She is showing (so far) a keen talent for going with the flow — and letting the flow take her closer to where she wants to go.
UPDATE: For a much different take on the debate be SURE to read The Glittering Eye.
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18 Responses to “Clinton, Obama Lead Feisty Pack At Democratic Debate (UPDATED)”
Every time I see Hillary, I get a little more OK with her. She’s more likable than Al Gore (there’s an epithet), which means at the very least, I won;t hold my nose to vote against her. If she keeps rubbing me the right way, I might even vote for her.
“If I were a normal America[n], I think I’d really think that.”
This ‘If’ should have been put into bold letters!
Hehehe, finally, KLo states shes isn’t a normal American.
Well, most of us knew this since a very long time, but nice to see her admitting it.
ggg
I think a lot of people are overcoming their objections to Hillary, because she is proving that she can win. This to Democrats, has become more important than her past foibles or whether she will bring Obama-style change. (she won’t)
IMO, she is still a centrist like her husband, which will help with Independents and some moderate Republicans who are fleeing their own party. The other key factor she brings to the race is competence- which many are willing to accept as a trade-off for warmth or perceived compassion.
I actually like Joe Biden the best, and hope that at least he ends up in the winner’s cabinet. He did well in last night’s debate- out-performing John Edwards, and actually has the experience in foreign policy that the rest lack.
The media that presented such a convincing argument for the war in Iraq is now trying to convince people the irony of all ironies: the experience and competence of Hillary Clinton. I feel there is a lot cherry picking going on. I feel that there is a lot of bias spin to the facts. I would like those inclined to choose Hillary Clinton. What has she done? Am I not mistaken but did she not authorize this god forsaken war? Even without READING THE NIE! Did she not side with this president to “stay the course”. We all know she was trying to show her “toughness” at the expense of the lives of our servicemen. Can anyone tell me any accompishments? Please.!!!!
At this point in time I am decidedly in the Obama camp. He has shown intelligence and a rational approach to many of the issues we are dealing with today.
I have yet to watch last night’s debate but I have it tivo’d so I will watch it once I get a chance. But I am still very much not a fan of Hillary Clinton. I still believe she is nothing more than an opportunist. She may not be bringing the eye of newt to the witches but it seems that every action and statement she makes is calculated for maximum effect with little consideration for her actual beliefs. I believe she would be even worse than her husband when it comes to poll driven leadership.
Now don’t get me wrong. I do believe a President should be mindful of what the people want. And it should greatly influence his or her actions. But if his or her actions are completely driven by the fickle feelings of 300 million people they are doing nothing more than pandering.
FTR, I don’t much care for her voting to authorize the war. That vote was a set up and any Senator with Presidential aspirations had no choice but to vote in favor of it or be seen as against giving the President the tools to accomplish the mission.
But I find her middle of the road foreign policy views now to be completely blah inspiring. I don’t want warmed over Bush Doctrine. I want smart and thoughtful policy intended to make a real change in how our foreign policy apparatus operates. That’s why I thought that Obama’s Paksitan speech was spot on. The part about Pakistan was minor. The part about bringing the State Department back into the game and working with countries such as Pakistan or Sudan or Afghanistan to build real countermeasures to extremism is the way to go.
Well written post Joe, but it is devoid of anything besides commentary on the appearance of the candidates.
We keep focusing on how “presidential” a client sounds and looks, but instead we should be paying attention to what they are actually saying.
Where’s the substantive debate about policy? Do we want to elect people that SEEM competent or people that ARE competent?
Hmm, I support Chris view. It can’t be that the candidates didn’t say anything on the issues. By leaving this out of the reporting, actually, even if accidentally, this spreads the view that the Dems don’t have anything interesting to say on the issues. No surprise that still some casual observers want to ask the candidates what they are standing for.
Chirs,
When was the last time you saw a substantive debate policy between Presidential candidates? Heck when was the last time that there was substantive debates between any politicians seeking office? Lincoln-Douglas?
Debates are about getting your message out and coming up with whitty quips to jab your opponents.
Guees you’re right, fly, even though I don’t like that. But it has been reported that candidates train those witty lines of maximum ten seconds length to raise their chances of making it into the news.
Yup, you get what you pay for.
And what do you pay for TV news?
Nothing.
Diehard political wonks should occasionally stike up a conversation with women in the grocery store checkout line, a soccer game or a family reunion.
Those women don’t know half of what’s going on that you do, don’t watch 2008 election debates on a summer evening in 2007, nor could tell you what the NAFTA acronym stands for……..but they outvote you 10 to 1.
What they think is that it is time a woman should be President.
Yes, if the election would be held today, Hillary in a landslide. (yet, as I always say, an awful lot of things can change in 15 months.)
I haven’t witnessed it yet, but there were some policy issues debated last night and those should be examined before we start dissecting which shoes each candidate wore.
For example, do you think Hillary is right when she says that it’s irresponsible to discuss foreign policy theoreticals, or Obama correct when he says foreign policy decisions should not be left to Washington elites?
And if you or Joe think there was no substance in the statements from the candidates last night, then they should be taken to task for being too cowardly, devoid of ideas, or hostile to the idea of a democratic election.
People are discovering that Clinton and Obama are front-runners? Wow.
I’ll laugh if Obama does become Hillary’s VP given the good chance that so much conflict between them may well be scripted — so he can play the lefty while she remains “safe and sane.”
She has arrogated Presidential powers already, in the past, and tried to engineer the federal takeover of medical care in this country, in a way so imperious and outrageous (as well as fascistic) that she generated Republican landslide victories in 1994 (though only the out-of-touch alien-to-real-America-and-real-American elites were truly surprised, not to mention shocked, offended, or outraged by this).
Do you realize that she is likely to be elected in 2008, anyway, and has that likelihood independent of the GOP challenge’s implosion or self-destruction we see? (From the start the GOP has been the challenger against her, even though a Republican won in 2004 and 2008 and is in the White House today.)
Or at least, they don’t have the prejudice against a woman running for President (before that, Congress, mayor, whatever) that all the elites assume or claim that they have.
Not really what I said. What I said was that it really isn’t a debate. It’s a bunch of 2-3 minute speeches with little soundbyte barbs thrown at your opponent.
A true debate requires the debaters to respond to the actual points made by their opponents. This NEVER happens in political debates these days, if it ever did.
That doesn’t mean that they lack substance. They try and convey their ideas to the American people. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. But the ideas themselves aren’t debated.
Exactly right.
Liberals who are fervently supporting Hillary Clinton seem to be suffering from amnesia.
Hillary Clinton gets a lot of mileage criticizing Bush for his mishandling of the war but has yet to take responsibility in both initiating and prolonging the war.
Hillary Clinton has been among the most hawkish Democratic supporters of the war. She voted to authorize the war in October 2002. Yet she didn’t bother to read the National Intelligence Estimate that came out before the vote. And she reiterated her support for invading Iraq—unilaterally, if need be—a mere two weeks before the first bombs fell on Baghdad. And when her fellow Democrats proposed withdrawal from Iraq in 2005, Hillary Clinton was among the first to criticize them and insist that we stay the course.
Who said the following quote:
George W. Bush?
Dick Cheney?
Donald Rumsfeld?
Condoleezza Rice?
Nope. It was said by Hillary Clinton in February 2005.
If you think John Kerry got slammed with flip-flopping on Iraq in 2004, just wait until Hillary is nominated in 2008.
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