Ah snap polls, 30 second rebuttals, and issues broken down by a show of hands.

Yep, the uninformed American voter was the real winner last night.

Tune in to the next debate, where each candidate will have 4 minutes to perform a Stevie Wonder song of their choosing. On the next...American Candidate.

I think much of the "analysis" by the pundits and the blogospheric wanna-bees is complete hooey. Debates tend to confirm peoples pre-existing positions. Over at MyDD people are parsing every statement for signs of inadequate political correctness. What is the point?

What matters is the general impressions created in the minds of the voters, and any significant gaffes. Obama seems to have done best in the online poll and the SUSA poll. That is what matters. None of the big three had any major gaffes.

Personally, I thought Edwards and Obama were the best. But then I thought they were the best going in. I thought HRC was competent but highly scripted. I was disappointed with Richardson. The rest don't matter, except as window dressing.

RE the predictable angle NR is taking on Obama's answer to the domestic terrorist attack question ... what's new? Given the kinds of "arguments" that publication has been advancing lately, Obama could have promised to decimate half the ME within 24 hours and they would have called him wrong ("and what about the other half, Barack Hussein Obama? too weak to blow up the whole enchilada?"

That's sad, because I was oddly comforted by his response - it struck me as more intuitive than political (especially compared to the other candidates) and certainly more along the lines of what I would want my national leader thinking if such a tragedy were ever to rear its ugly head.

Of COURSE the "right" answer was that "I would take swift and decicive military action." And Edwards and Hillary got it right right away.

But if this were actually happening in the REAL WORLD (as opposed to in the vaccuum of Washington political punditry and debate), how many Americans of any political persuasion - especially after Iraq - really want our president dashing to put his/her finger on that big red button FIRST, before having and acting on the other things Obama listed? If my city were bombed, gassed or attacked in some other horrible way that put me and my loved ones in grave danger, in that immediate moment I want my leader getting us the hell outta there, not using the suffering and anger of his or her fellow Americans (justified anger, of course)to start a war too quickly, regardless of evidence, possibly leading to more unneccessary bloodshed.

The Bush administration has made this mistake in spades. Their obsession with "evil" terrorists (and often a perception that Islam itself is inherently evil) took them straight to the killing fields every time - and the disgusting bumbling after Katrina was the inevitable result. Had our president actually had a post-attack process in mind instead of just an end result, thousands of American lives would have been spared - in New Orleans, in Iraq, and likely in Afghanistan, too.

Why do we keep letting the maniacal hawkishness of the right wing fringe get in the way of our own common sense?

Actually, the quotation marks around "right" were intended to denote sarcasm; I absolutely do NOT think that dumb, almost random retaliation is the proper response to this kind of situation.

My point was that it was the "right" answer according to the pundits,, whose ongoing meme has been that Democrats are pathetic weaklings who don't have the heart to swat a fly. It is the answer they were looking for, so that they could spend the post-debate "analysis" (there go those quotation marks again!)blabbering on about how so-and-so tried to establish their "national security credibility" ... as if actually trying to find the right culprits and actually fix the problem were not the truly responsible and credible thing to do as CIC.

I'm on your side here. Obama's answer was 100% correct - and a perfect example of the kind of thinking I'm looking for in a national leader. Its too bad our dangerously right-leaning establishment makes it so damned hard for Joe Schmoe to see the forest for the trees sometimes....

I don't get what was wrong with Senator Obama thinking about US first!

Probably, because there are an awful lot of 'bring it on' mentality folks out there writing columns who much prefered Hillary's 'the warhawk' response of 'retaliate'.

Obama chose to focus on all that needed to be done to secure the nationa and respond appropriately. Many Americans are no longer use to intelligence and competence when it comes to handling national or foreign affairs. They would rather fight then figure out what the target is first.

The key things these pundits are overlooking is that Obama is saying that a military response to terrorism is ineffective, as our long drawn out war in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown. He has repeatedly stated that global terrorism requires robust diplomacy and foreign policy changes in order to win it.

Warhawks, miss that critical point.

OK,  good points.

 The graph is too wide for me to see the Party Affliation and candidate column simultaneously.

And among self-described "liberals", Hillary had an edge over Obama.

SUSA was a survey of SC voters. SC does not have party identification, so respondents were asked to self identify.

gqmartinez, you and I are among the most frequent posters here. You have made no secret of the fact that you are a not a big fan of Obama, but I have never really heard you lay out an analysis of why you dislike him other than generic criticism about "experience" and a distaste for his rhetoric.

I would be interested to understand your position. Do you think Obama would be a weak nominee? If so why? Do you object to his ideology, or is your concern that he is not up to the actual job of being President?