Senator Hillary Clinton’s responses caressed the CNN real-time reaction meter with consistently higher ratings than Senator Barack Obama all night long.
A few other observations, as a result of liveblogging the debate at two blogs at once:
-Hillary was “Senator Clinton” while Barack was “Barack” much of the evening - some of the co-bloggers I blogged with didn’t like that and thought it wasn’t respectful of HRC to not call Barack “Senator Obama.”
-some bloggers thought Obama looked annoyed when talking about hugging a grieving parent in relation to the angst of the war in Iraq.
-everyone loved the idea of the Dream Team and blogged it before Wolf Blitzer asked about the two candidates whether they’d consider it.
-we all wanted to know where Bill was shacked up and who he was with for the night.
-we wanted Pierce Brosnan and Diane Keaton to ask the questions and we wanted the camera to stop showing Rob Reiner.
General consensus: far better debate on every level than the GOP event last night. My estimation: because the two candidates are far better candidates on every level. But that’s just me.
…Arnold Schwarzenegger] said that the high profile and competing endorsements the Kennedy family - not including his wife Maria Shriver - in the Democratic presidential contest represents a dramatic departure from past years.
“What’s interesting is that, within the family, for the first time you have different opinions,” he said. “I’ve been in the family 30 years, and I’ve never seen that…that’s really the story - what created that, and how Caroline and Teddy hooked up with the same opinion, and Kathleen ended up going with Hillary.”
“I don’t know the whole scoop, because it just happened, ” he laughed. “But eventually we’ll find out.”
Schwarzenegger was referring to the news that Shriver’s cousins, Caroline Kennedy and Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, and her uncle, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama Monday in a dramatic event at American University. But other family members, including former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and said her brother Bobby and sister Kerry do as well.
As for the leanings of Governor Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver:
Schwarzenegger declined to address a possible endorsement by his wife, saying “you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
But sources in the office of the California First Lady, who is the daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver - and the niece to Ted Kennedy, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the late president John F. Kennedy - said today that Shriver currently has no plans to endorse in the 2008 presidential race.
Shriver political sympathies could be valuable to both Clinton and Obama in the race: she is an active First Lady who has been a leading advocate of women’s issues - and she is also a good friend to talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who has endorsed Obama.
I do like that he told the press to ask her and not him about her endorsement sentiments.
Any betting types out there who want to bet on this one?
January 31st, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
A new Rasmussen Poll shows New York Senator Hillary Clinton’s lead is shrinking in California — a state where her campaign reportedly had viewed Latino voters as a “firewall” in Tuesday’s “Super Tuesday” primary:
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in California shows Hillary Clinton with a very narrow three-percentage point lead over Barack Obama. The survey was conducted in the hours immediately following Florida’s Presidential Primary and before John Edwards dropped out of the race.
Two weeks ago, Clinton led Obama by five percentage points in California.
The survey found Edwards with 9% of the vote while 4% said they would vote for some other candidate and another 4% were not sure.
Obama had a narrow 43% to 41% advantage among the party’s liberal voters while Clinton held a 45% to 35% edge among moderate voters.
Obama held a three-point lead among white voters in the state while Clinton had a twenty-seven point lead among Hispanic voters.
As everyone has learned this year, polls do not necessarily reflect election results. But the TRENDING is important — and a new national Gallup Poll shows that Obama has cut Clinton’s lead to 6 points.
