One vs. All
Campaign headlines tonight center on the Democratic debate, which wrapped up just a few minutes ago from Drexel University in Philadelphia.
Standing center stage, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was the heavyweight on the stage. On Iran, Iraq, social security, the Alternative Minimum Tax, NY Governor Spitzer’s plan to document illegal immigrants with driver’s licenses and more, Sen. Clinton’s opponents, particularly John Edwards and Barack Obama, attacked her for what they called “double speak”–voicing conflicting opinions on key stances. Clinton, meanwhile, carefully turned her attention to the failures of the Bush Administration.
The format (HRC asked question; Obama/Edwards respond; HRC rebuttal) for the first half of the evening limited the availability of any candidate to shine. The later 30-second spots forced the otherwise verbose Dems to condense answers on education, immigration, and UFOs (in case you missed it, Dennis Kucinich has seen them and Chris Matthews is afraid the party will become pro-UFO vs. the anti-evolution Republicans).
- Winner: to be determined. Obama and Edwards did what they came to do. HRC wasn’t able to stay above the fray, but she didn’t lose her cool.
- Best line: Joe Biden. Rudy Giuliani’s sentences consist of a “verb, a noun, and 9/11.”
- Post-debate spin: at this posting, the fight between the Giuliani and Biden camps has only just begun.
- Issue: Iran got three rounds of questions, at least.
We’ll have more analysis on this largely foreign policy-related debate to come, but we’d like to hear your thoughts on the debate. Leave us your comments on the candidates’ stances, whether on halting Iranian nuclear proliferation, or the comparatively shorter school year American children attend than their international counterparts. Let’s delve into the issues in more time than the “lightening round” would allow.
Photo: AP/Matt Rourke