If it's such a lonely job in the White House, how come she got any experience at all during the '90's?

Obama won.

I think its pretty much a given that Hillary will ask Obama to be her running mate if she wins the nomination. His ability to bring new voters into the fold is virtual political gold that she needs. Plus, it might be one of the few ways for her to make peace with many jilted African American voters.

Conversely, I don't see Obama asking Clinton to be is running mate. It isn't clear to me that she brings in votes that he wouldn't normally get in a general election. Plus, there's always the added risk of getting tagged with Clinton fatigue. Still, I think she'd be a phenomenal choice. I love Hillary Clinton as a candidate and as a person.

Until I saw Kathleen Sebelius deliver the Democratic response, I thought she could be his running mate. No more.

Josh Marshall:

"Not that there is anything wrong with Bill."

Are you bloodly nuts?
You spend months going after Rudy on Shag fund...
And you ignore the fact that Clinton pissed away 3 years of his term lying about getting a blow-job from a 22 year old in the oval office? Two years worth of lies plastering the morning paper.

Did you read the NYT on Kazakhstan fund?
You rationalized that away far too easily:
All the ex-presidents do it.

Sick man.
Sick.

HRC is disingenuous when she talks about "everyone starting at the same place."

For starters, she started with name recognition as a result of her husband. This was parlayed into a NY Senate seat -- a state where she barely had residence. The war chest for running builds from there.

HRC was so far out in front that many people chose not to run this election. In fact, she was the "inevitable" candidate until about November.

Michelle Obama is hardly to be compared to Bill Clinton in terms of "merely being a spouse."

The funny part is that the Clintons pushed very hard for the two-fer idea. It also allowed a clever good cop/bad cop routine. It was not unreasonable for Obama to say in an earlier debate "who am I running against"?

Now the Clintons realize that, just as in a 3-legged race, when one partner stumbles, they both fall. Being a two-fer is a doubled edged proposition.

HRC was asked point blank earlier today if she could "control" her husband. She answered "oh, of course."

Even her most ardent supporter would have to concede that that is stretching the truth.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/01/clinton-says-sh.html

I just want to say that this was an AMAZING debate. It was so civil and substantive, that I might have to watch it again just to fully digest the whole thing.

I'm an Obama supporter, but I thought Hillary looked fantastic in this debate,... not belligerent or looking to strike a blow here and there. I actually got to hear what her ideas were and what her thinking was behind them, and surprise! surprise! I actually liked the thinking behind a few.

I couldn't help thinking that if she had had run like this the whole time, that Obama might not still be in this. Of course I thought Obama knocked it out the park ... coming across as more charming and personable, making his points gently but firmly.

This is how all political races should be.

I have to agree with Senator Obama when he said:

I think everybody, the day after that vote was taken, understood this was a vote potentially to go to war. I think...were very clear about that. That's the...if you look at the headlines. The
reason that this is important, again, is that
Senator Clinton, I think, fairly, has claimed that she's got the experience on day one. And part of the argument that I'm making in this campaign is that, it is important to be right on day one.

I always look at the headlines. Whenever I have to make an important, crucial decision, the headlines are what have helped me to be right on day one.

Good one!

You had a choice. You could followup, or at least report the story from page one in the New York Times.

There are serious implications of what Bill Clinton did regarding the uranium deal, which added 50 million dollars to the Clinton foundation---a worthy organization, I suppose, but this is not an acceptable way to raise funds.

And he lied about it.

Are you going to explain it, or interpret it, or anything?

kjoe

I feel the need to comment b/c Greg seems so lonely. Are none of the regular crowd willing to register, or are they having technical problems? My password didn't work, and when I reset it, I had to fish the email out of my spam filter.

In any case, I pronounce the debate essentially even with a slight advantage to Obama. There were really only two issues in this debate, health care and Iraq.

On health care, I give the nod to Clinton b/c Obama's explanation about how the only thing stopping people from getting health care is the inability to afford it. 25 year olds under their parents plan? Is he serious? And then at 26, they're all going to get responsible and start paying? And then there was the bit about how if nonpayers get sick they would just have to pay the missed payments. If I knew that all I had to do if I got sick was to make my missed payments, I'd put the money in a bank account and pay up if I happened to get sick. It didn't make any sense and feeds the argument that Obama is all vision and implementation.

That said, the health care debate was praiseworthy in its focus on issues but ultimately boring. I found myself wanting the two of them to shut up and move on. Clinton's plan makes more sense, but I don't think that the differences are going to get anyone excited about voting for her.

Obama benefited by the focus on Iraq in the second half of the debate. His comments were pointed and effectively promoted his consistency and good judgment. He was, frankly, uncannily prescient before the war began. Clinton, interestingly, has abandoned the attempt to portray him as flip-flopping in 2004, confirmation of the utter failure of Bill's "fairy tale" line. Clinton, on the other hand, looked like she was making excuses. You know, I get that a lot of people, Dems and Repubs, screwed up about Iraq. Bush lied, and the intel was bad. So just admit that you screwed up. Edwards did that at the beginning of his campaign and never had to look back. Clinton cannot seem to admit error, and so this issue still dogs her. I think that it's a major flaw and reminds of no one more than George W. Bush.

So Clinton won round 1, and Obama won round 2, but round 2 was worth more points.

I agree with Josh's assessment that Obama was more successful b/c frankly, Clinton is a better debater, and Obama held his own in this one. I hesitate, though, b/c Obama is still behind in the polls, and I think that he needed a bigger victory. Clinton is trying to run out the clock, and Obama ran for a few yards rather than throwing a long pass. He may yet be able to score in a running game, but as an Obama supporter, I would have liked to see a spectacular pass completion. (Sorry about the football metaphor--big game on sunday.)

A final note, the moderation was a bit weird. In the second half, it seemed that most of the questions went to Clinton, with Obama rarely even getting a rebuttal. This may have been partly his fault, as he often didn't seem to push for a rebuttal. But then, whenever he did get a rebuttal, Wolf asked him to talk about something else. I'm curious to see what the relative talk time of each candidate was. That said, I'm not sure that this imbalance was actually good for Clinton. She received more questions, but they weren't necessarily questions that she wanted to have to answer. Still, it was all a little strange.

P.S. What happened to Bill? Was he hiding in the audience somewhere? I'd like to find a big shot of the entire audience to play Where's Waldo?

No freakin' way...

With the DLC effectively operating a shadow operation within the Democratic Party for seven years and then having Hillary as VP -- Obama would be knifed before he knows it...

Just like the same crap we have been having with Pelosi and Hoyer...

Obama needs a VP and people who are loyal to him -- not some faction that is consistently trying to undermine CHANGE -- GOD NO!!

We have to end the Washington Mindset that led us to war in the first place.
(by mageduley)

Note these quotes as an example:

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.
It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.”
“So it is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our nation. A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our President..”
- Hillary Clinton 2002, floor speech right before the war authorization.

"I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.”
– Obama 2002

Now I ask you - Where did Obama get his information about "Iraq economy in shambles"? How did he find out that its military was "a fraction of its former self"? Why did he think that the international community could contain him?

Obama did independent research to find out these things! Then used common sense and deductive reasoning.

Hillary did not read the NIE. The information in her floor speech was taken from the rhetoric the Bush Administration spoon fed her. Her EXPERIENCE in the white house had actually clouded her judgement. While others may have looked with a critical eye, Hillary was judging the info by what the CIA used to be under Bill. Thus she regarded the info as accurate. Her EXPERIENCE therefore, is not the positive asset she would like us to believe.

Vote Judgement - Vote Obama

If Hillary is the nominee, Senator Obama would have to be crazy to accept the VP slot. With Hillary and Big Foot Bill running the show, the VP would become invisible, and would never be heard from again. I can not imagine why any person, who wants to have a national political future, would put their self in a spot where they would have no say in what the administration does. Big Foot Bill would be the Virtual VP.