Democratic Debate in New Hampshire

Given the unfair advantage of several more questions then the other candidates, and almost complete conversations with Tim Russert, Hillary did quite well during MSNBC Debate Wednesday night in New Hampshire. At least she didn’t hurt herself any.

The trick question about torture and if she thought it was right to use it in certain cases, was in my view, a planted question. Bill Clinton's comments about torture were well discussed in the media. She had to have known what Bill said in the past about the issue.

John Edwards made several good points. While I still don’t believe he will be a viable ‘general election’ candidate, I think he probably helped himself a tad bit during the debate. He sounded more upbeat and prepared this time around.

Barack Obama answered all his questions with careful thought and deliberation. He basically answered the questions the same way that Hillary and John Edwards did on the war issue, health care and social security. Where he was different however, was his approach. He wanted Americans to know that all these things aren’t going to be easy, it’s going to take work, bipartisanship, and sacrifice. He was being presidential in my view by not giving Americans what they ‘want’ to hear, but what they ‘should’ hear; the truth.

Chris Matthew’s and his commentators, before and after, the debate tried their best to write Obama off for not attacking Hillary. He didn’t ‘point his finger at her’ or go on the ‘attack’ against Hillary when he had a chance, they said.

One commentator may have gotten it right however. Perhaps Obama truly believes that there needs to be a change in the way campaigns are run and the way Washington works, that perhaps Obama really wanted to stay above the fray, as he promised he would when he started his campaign.

Chris Dobbs and Governor Richardson were able to point out their differences on getting out of Iraq. They both pledged to get out by 2013.

Senator Biden was able to show his leadership abilities within Congress with his, divide Iraq bill he passed earlier in the day.

If we’re real lucky Americans, perhaps the media and talk shows like Hardball, would quit pushing the envelope of this election (implying that it’s all over for a candidate, if he/she doesn’t do this 'tonight'. There’s three months left before even one vote is taken.), perhaps we will be able to take our time to listen to what is said and decide for ‘ourselves’, who is actually the best candidate to be President of the United States.

Russert pulled President Clinton's quote out of context. He was using the Socratic method to offer up the "ticking time bomb" scenario only to smack it down. The entire conversation is filled with examples of President Clinton rejecting torture.
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From Meet the Press, 9/24/06:
MR. RUSSERT: What did you think when Colin Powell said, “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism”?

MR. CLINTON:...If we get a reputation for torturing people, the following bad things are going to happen: We’re as likely going to get bad information is good, just for people to just quit getting beat on; two, we’re likely to create two or three or five enemies for every one we break; and three, we make our own soldiers much more vulnerable to conduct which violates the Geneva Convention. That is, we can’t expect our friends, much less our enemies, to accept the fact that because we’re the good guys, we get to have a different standard of conduct. And most people think the definition of a good guy is someone who voluntarily observes a different standard of conduct, not someone who claims the right to do things others can’t do.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you outlaw waterboarding and sleep deprivation, loud music, all those kinds of tactics?

MR. CLINTON: Well, I—here’s what I would do. I would figure out what the, what the generally accepted definitions of the Geneva Convention are, and I would honor them. I would also talk to people who do this kind of work about what is generally most effective, and they will—they’re almost always not advocate of torture, and I wouldn’t do anything that would put our own people at risk.

Now, the thing that drives—that, that gives the president’s position a little edge is that every one of us can imagine the following scenario: We get lucky, we get the number three guy in al-Qaeda, and we know there’s a big bomb going off in America in three days and we know this guy knows where it is. Don’t we have the right and the responsibility to beat it out of him? But keep in mind, in 99 percent of the interrogations, you don’t know those things.

Now, it happens like even in the military regulations, in a case like that, they do have the power to use extreme force because there is an imminent threat to the United States, and then to live with the consequences. The president—they could set up a law where the president could make a finding or could guarantee a pardon or could guarantee the submission of that sort of thing ex post facto to the intelligence court, just like we do now with wire taps.

So I, I DON'T THINK THAT HARD CASE JUSTIFIES THE SWEEPING AUTHORITY FOR WATERBOARDING AND ALL THE OTHER STUFF that was sought in this legislation. And I think, you know, if that circumstance comes up—we all know what we’d do to keep our country from going through another 9/11 if we could. But to—but to claim in advance the right to do this whenever someone takes a notion to engage in conduct that plainly violates the Geneva Convention, that, I think, is a mistake."

President Clinton imagined the "ticking time bomb" scenario only to knock it down. It's called the Socratic method. Russert took the quote out of context to make it look like President Clinton was endorsing torture when he was doing the opposite.
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Russert is a hack.

I did not watch the debate, but rather, this morning I read the entire transcript of the debate.

If anyone is the least bit interested in what the candidates actually said, as compared to say, being interested in quicky gotcha-ism titillations, then they would find that Obama's actual responses were consistently and impressively non-combative, intelligent and inclusive.

In other words, Obama is dependably true to his own stated pragmatism rather than pandering to the media pundits and others wanting to be entertained by fresh snarks.

Obama flops? Not according to your highlight reels.

I toggled between the politcal debate in NH and the sports debate in Philly between my Phillies and the Braves. Both interesting match ups, and interestingly, the Dems were more entertaining.

This is the first time the headline to one of your video clips really missed the mark. The headline of last night's debate was Sen. Clinton putting it right back in Tim R.'s face when he thought he pulled a "gotcha" on Sen. Clinton. Priceless.

Donna G,

If the country did as you did...read the debate, not watched it, fine. But most don't. Most people watch. How a candidate appears (dare I say, even how they "perform") matters. There's much more to it than just the words coming out of their mouths. Just ask Richard Nixon.

You may find that to be a sad state of affairs, but it nevertheless true.

I find the idea that we can keep troops in Iraq beyond 2013 or any date outrageous. It means, essentially, that we can invade and occupy any country for legitimate or illegitimate reasons and as long as the result is a "national security issue" - as it almost inevitably would be because the population would be radicalized against America - we can stay. At least by our policy. Welcome to Burma, where all power comes from the barrel of a gun.

Tim Russert is an embarassment to "journalism". His gotcha questions are what one would expect from someone in high school. His relentless focus on Hillary in particular is unfair, not just to the candidate, but more importantly to the voters.

Listening to the commentary after the debate, I sensed the media may be rethinking it's anointing of Hillary. The comments seemed to be trending toward shifting the focus away from inevitability toward a "Hillary is taking for granted that she will be the nominee." This could spell trouble for her if they've decided that perhaps they acted too quickly in making her the focus of nearly all their attention. They seemed to be toying with the idea of making the new scenario Clinton vs Edwards instead of Obama who has experienced some weakness in recent polls. I detest how they do this, but they do, do this. It's unfair to all the candidates and to the public.

The corporate media seems to have a sort of ADHD which they project onto the public and use that as an excuse for their own shortcomings. They wanted more of a contest from Obama, but if they don't see that they're happy to make the race between Hillary and Edwards or whoever helps the new storyline they've chosen develop. What crap! And what self agrandizing crap it is! They think they need to choose for us as though the people aren't smart enough to do so for themselves. So they just skip the part where they are supposed to focus on the real substantive issues of the day and focus in large part on the horse race and trivialities. They abuse their platform (which is supposed to be reporting on events and developments)and use it to guide public opinion in the direction they deem best. I guess it might not be so bad if their judgement wasn't so horrendous. They have had some disasterous failures in the regular news department where the stories they tried to create didn't receive public cooperation, e.g.: Clinton will be impeached, Bush is a popular President, the war is a good thing, people believe what Betrayus had to say and thus the tide of public opinion will change back toward supporting the war, etc. Yet, they still hold sway to a large degree when it comes to the Presidential election process. It's really disgusting.

I wish they would instead focus on the major issues confronting the nation and bring them up for adult discussion instead of these simple-minded, gotcha sort of scenarios and almost belligerent insistence that the candidates discuss an issue only on their terms as Russert tried to make happen last night, e.g. what pain will you bring to bear upon the people to secure social security's future? The corporate media are doing massive damage to our democracy.

Finally, it was nice to see Salon's Joan Walsh included as a talking head after the debate, but I couldn't tell if she had little to say or just wasn't given enough time to say much. It's a start though, at including a voice that isn't fully incorporated into the corporate media world.

Totally frivolous, shallow and please attack me for it comment. Senator Clinton's vote for the Kyl-Liberman amendment was an abomination. But that raw silk orange suit! Are we ready to elect the Magic Pumpkin president of the United States?

Since 1960 the Democratic Party has elected three men to the White House. All three of them were white southerners. They were Johnson, Carter, and Clinton. Since 1944, only one Democrat has been elected to two consecutive terms and that is Bill Clinton. Clearly white southern males do better in general elections than northern males such as Humphrey, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry. (I am not sure how to classify McGovern since South Dakota is a Great Plains State.)

In fact, the only white southerner who lost the presidency on his first try after getting the nomination was Gore and he got more popular votes than Bush in 2000. Counting Gore, white southern males have been nominated six times since 1960 and have won four of those elections. White northern males have been nominated five times since 1960 and have lost all five times. Whether a white northern woman will win or lose remains to be seen.

The point of all this is to answer the person who believes that John Edwards is the least electable candidate of the top three. Actually, using historical trends, he is probably the most electable.

Re: mrgavel and the "great white hope" theory:

Johnson made it because JFK was otherwise indisposed at the time and Billy C. and Jimmy C. made it because they were governors -- they knew/know how to relate to peoples like me. I like Sen. Clinton alot but I still think the road to White House starts at a governor's house.

My money's on some kind of once-in-a-lifetime, bat-out-of-hell alternative candidacy Gore/Hagel.

mrgavel,
If you look at recent demographics, the Democratic constituency is decidely not in the South. The swing states are in the Southwest and upper midwest. It's unlikely that any Dem will win a southern state this go round. Demographic trends indicate that Virginia and eventually North Carolina will eventually turn blue. Historical trends on needing a "southern white male" to win the presidency are outdated.

In terms of Kerry, he was the strongest nominee (though i'd probably argue Wes Clark was even stronger in some areas). As was mentioned, Bush was a wartime president with favorabilities in the 50s. He also had the power of the "elevated security level". Yet Bush barely one. That is unprecedented and indicative of Kerry's strond candidacy. I wouldn't argue that he ran a terrible campaign though (with Edwards contributing to that atrocious performance).

John Edwards, while preferrable to any of the GOP candidates, can not win the general. I think the Gore analogy is most appropriate. A white southern male that will not make a dent in the south, and will probably lose his own state.

The guy has some great qualities and would probably be a decent President, but the mistakes he's made thus far will leave him defenseless to the GOP attack machine. The only reason he seems so compelling at this point is that is because he's desperate to propel himself into the top two.

The media has ruined this contest by declaring HRC "the most experienced" candidate. By declaring her the champ before a single round was fought, the media has distorted the playing field on which the candidates compete. The "game show" debate formats along with the accelerated primary schedule have not helped either. All HRC has to do is run out the clock for the next three months, and the GOP will have a 11 months to take her apart.

I don't think this debate changed many minds, which I suppose conventional wisdom suggests may help Hillary, but I think the onus is on her to close the deal. If she never answers any question, the voters leaning toward her are going to take another look at the other candidates. I thought all of the candidates were pretty average, and if you are predisposed toward one or another, you were probably satisfied with this person. It was kind of pathetic that Chris Dodd wouldn't stand by his own criticism of Hillary.

I thought the most obvious highlights of the debate were what an idiot Tim Russert is for what he did with the BS unfair Bill Clinton misquote, and what a total idiot Chris Matthews is. The NECN lady also picked the dumbest possible questions to ask (and Pat Buchanan is an idiot for suggesting afterward that anyone cares about all the dumb questions she asked.

After the debate, Chris Matthews asked Chris Dodd, "Are you comfortable debating a woman?" Later he said that Bill Clinton keeps Hillary on a short leash b/c she would not answer the question about donors to the Clinton Foundation. Right, Bill has Hillary on a leash. Just ridiculous.

I thought it was a good, fair question -- once again, she won't change politics with openness and transparency, just like all her work in secret on Hillarycare that caused it to flop). She won't directly answer many questions on many topics at this point, since she's running a general election strategy.

Anyway, where was Keith Olbermann tonight? The best MSNBC has to offer definitely should have been there.

The MSNBC spin room just wants all of the candidates to attack each other. Chris Matthews got visibly upset that they wouldn't do that. Obviously he doesn't remember the lesson of Iowa 2004, in which the attacker (Gephardt) and the attacked (Dean) both suffered. I think that's why both Edwards and Obama are not as full-throated and vociferous in going after Hillary as they could be. The points they kept trying to make about troop withdrawals by 2013 were also ignorant.

Note that Russert led the talk time, unlike other debate moderators.

Eric, only in a few big cities like New York is making $90,000-$200,000 a year considered middle class. I do think that's probably a good, politically viable option for Social Security, and Edwards was astute for picking up on it.

Also, Hillary actually said, "Well, he's not THE ONE standing here right now," meaning Bill's not running for President and she is. I think leaving out "the one" gives it a slightly different feel. I thought she handled that very well and it was a particularly effective moment for her, taking her a bit off her more typical canned approach, even though I do think she probably was aware that a question in that vein was a possibility. She looked a bit justifiably upset with Russert, probably b/c she thought he had misquoted Bill (which Russert had).

Matthews was his usual annoying, hyperbolic, motor mouth self last night.

Chuck Todd (now billed as NBC News Political Director) was in the process of completing a thoughtful observation when Tweedy panicked (camera off him too long?), started talking over him, finally cutting him off altogether.

First time I've seen Todd roll his eyes, frustrated and angry. He looked like he wanted to strangle the guy.

I'm sure Keith Obermann has felt the same way when having to share debate duties with Mr. Insufferable-- probably why he was absent last night.

Both Olbermann and Todd's political acumen is outshining Tweedy's own these days, making him look more and more like the insecure, hysterical hack he's become.

Why don't we change the SS formula to have people pay SS taxes on a certain percentage of their income? That way everyone, rich, middle class and poor, pays SS taxes on all of their income, not just those making $97,500 or less.

It would add progressivity, right? Is it the concern that wealthier folks would no longer support the program if they pay more into it than they get out of it?

You could bill it as a tax break for the middle class as well.

I'm an Obama man, but in the Veracifier cutdown, Hillary sure looked impressive. I don't know if this was due to editing, but either way I think she is beginning to leave behind the Hillarybot persona.

Obama didn't appear to shine, but neither did he appear in any way to "flop." If you go with that headline you really must back it up.