Seems the phrase of the debate is: Senator Edwards and I this, Senator Edwards and I that…from both candidates. They are both stretching for his endorsement and his voters.
The crowd seems to have quite a few more applause for Obama…
They are not sniping as much but then we’re only 50 minutes into the debate.
I’m happy Obama is delving into the substance of his motives - I hate Wolf Blitzer - stop baiting a fight!
Clinton doesn’t appear comfortable…
Obama kicked serious ass on the question about Iraq’s progress.
Just wanted to say that.
Very amicable debate. My sense is that both candidates think they have momentum on their side and feel they don’t need to attack (plus Hillary needed to come off as not at all negative given her recent media coverage).
I think Hillary looked better on health care and Obama looked better on Iraq. That’s probably a slight win for Hillary given the polling on the importance of the two issues.
I don’t think the debate changes anything in the race, and we’ll see a Super Tuesday that is much closer than was expected even a week ago.
What he said. This is going to be a horse race. Which is not good for my blood pressure, since I would pay untold wealth for Hillary to get some loathsome disease and die painfully.
Go, Barack!
Well, it looks like the Clinton camp finally got the message that we will not tolerate divisiveness and dirty politics. I’m glad.
I think Hillary won the debate on Health Care.
I think Obama won the debate on Iraq, Immigration, Change, Electability.
I think Hillary has a commanding lead in the polls and Obama may not have done enough to catch up to her.
Nope. She’s losing ground and he’s gaining ground daily. What was once a high, double-digit lead nationally, is down to a 4 pt lead. Not only isn’t 4 points “commanding”, it’s possibly within the margin of error.
And if it’s any indicator at all, he raised over 32 MILLION dollars, from over 250,000 individual donors in January alone. I highly doubt Hillary can claim anything close to those kinds of numbers.
Oh, and silenus, you crack me up!
According to MSNBC, the Hillary camp would only say they raised “over $10 million” in January. Looks like Obama is kicking ass in fundraising at the moment. He’s got Obamomentum.
Still in her favor. I definitely agree that the winds are shifting Barackward, but is he gaining fast enough? If he doesn’t win outright at least a few states Tuesday, and come within five to ten points of most of the rest, Clinton could easily become “inevitable” again.
All that (and more!) is certainly possible, but by no means certain.
Having been waiting for Hillary to become president for almost eight years I was very pleased with her performance. Clearly she can articulate a better grasp of the issues and a long resume to support the depth of her commitment.
Obama, as great a speaker as he is does hesitate and stumble at times while Hillary can speak faster and at length without ever missing a beat .
This was the best debate so far. The Democratic Party presidential candidates are the most outstanding contenders that I’ve seen in my lifetime of 57 years and I have great hopes for the future of the world.
I came in after they started talking about healthcare so I probably missed Hillary score points, but from the portion I saw, I noticed that she often didn’t answer questions right on the nose…at least without steering from Blitzer. This was most noticeable when she was asked about her vote for war in Iraq and when she was asked after keeping Bill in check. She danced around the mulberry bush with both of these.
From what I saw, Obama didn’t ramble as much as he did during the last debate and used his oratory chops to get in some persuasive soundbites. He did a good job of making Hillary look weak on Iraq by emphasizing how the problem there was not just limited to execution, but rather that the whole damn idea was faulty. It didn’t help that Hillary’s explanation for why she voted the way she did wasn’t very compelling. I would have expected her to use the “we were fed bad intelligence” excuse that Kerry used but she didn’t (if my memory serves me), and I think that’s to her detriment.
As an aside, am I the only one who thinks Hillary laughs like Falcor from the Neverending Story?
Heh…I was thinking she was wearing the smirk of Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Batman the whole time.
This was probably a wash, momentum wise. Obama has it, and Clinton is just hoping her leads are enough. Neither one wanted to rock the boat and risk a backlash. Clinton saw what can happen when you go negative in SC, and Obama saw the risk of attacking a woman (or appearing cold) in NH.
On the merits, Clinton probably won on health care, and Obama did on immigration and Iraq. The economy questions I don’t know because while I think Hillary’s 5-year rate freeze is a horrendous idea, and thus liked Obama’s refutation of it, I’m not sure what the public thinks about it.
And yes, the “laugh in response to a question I don’t want to answer” is very annoying.
CNN’s Bill Schneider said the debate was “unhelpful,” which I think means they didn’t fight enough.
She must be using those Joker Brand Cosmetics.
They both did very well. Hillary came off as much more likeable. Obama did what he had to do- appear friendly with Hillary and defuse the “snub” incident, refocus on his opposition to the war from the start, and appear presidential. Both are banking on the current trajectories- Hillary hopes her lead can hang on a few more days and Obama hopes his upward surge continues.
Yeah, the big losers were the news networks - no real barbs or attacks, no silliness to hype. Just real policy discussion and geniality. The only real sharp blows were to McCain and Romney - exactly as it should be in a Democratic primary debate.
Even if everything else in the debate was a wash, it looks like his winning on this issue alone may have a BIG impact.
Hillary’s campaign makes it difficult to gauge response by looking at her website’s official blog because it’s moderated, but I’m seeing a very clear trend on Obama’s; Latinos are pissed that she actually blamed immigration for the loss of jobs for African Americans and Whites.
And so on. Many people have been wondering how Obama would be able to draw the votes of the Latino population away from her, because she’s apparently quite loved in that community. I say her attitude in the debate last night will have a really big impact in several key states, particularly California, Arizona and possibly New York.
Hmm, good point and one I haven’t really considered. Immigration is a big issue here in MO, but more for xenophobic reasons than for economic ones. Do you think Obama calling out some in the AA community for “scapegoating” Latinos will hurt him? Or do the gains with Latinos outweigh any black losses? Certainly this adds another way to differentiate himself with a demographic that he has struggled to win.
Good thing they threw in that “Would you run together?” question, or else all they would have to talk about is the politeness. 
Yes, Obama won the debate ( according to Fox News) and me ( I didn’t need Fox News to tell me).
Obama set the tone according to his personal style: completely diplomatic.
I love him so much that it’s beyond words. And this is a major reason why.
oh, and Obama took the air out of hillary’s most recent little manipulating ploy in accusing Obama of snubbing her at the State of the union address.
He set the record straight in his own diplomatic way… It was so subtle that no one commented on it… how smooth is he. VERY.