I generally thought the debate was pretty low on substance, and certainly low on new information. And so (shock!) the candidates will once again be judged more for style than for substance. I might chime in later tonight or tomorrow on particulars, but for now I'll just rank them. Obviously it's impossible not to let biases influence something like this, and I realize that dozens of other bloggers' will have reactions of their own, some probably the exact opposite of mine. But I'll do my best.
1). John Edwards. Deflected the haircut question well, though he took a lot of backhanded jabs about it from the other candidates all evening. His response to the question about his moral leaders was heartwarming, and all the more masterful, I thought, for taking the time to give a sincere answer. He had the best line of the night, too, saying "it's time to ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war."
2). Joe Biden. Surprise of the night! Sounded very natural. Poised. I'd even go as far as calling him clean and articulate. His answer to the question of whether we could trust his conduct atop the world stage ("Yes!") was show-stoppingly funny.
3). Bill Richardson. He sounded awkward but had some big answers.
4). Dennis Kucinich. Sounded remarkably calm for him. His answers were on point, which is much more than I can say for just about anybody else.
5). Hillary Clinton/Chris Dodd (tie). Hillary was good, if canned-sounding. But her equivocation about Iraq and her answer about attacking a country in the event of another terrorist attack will (or ought to) come back to haunt her. Dodd did perfectly well, has a good platform and a great speaking voice, but--and I feel badly for him for this--he had to my count about three minutes of stage time.
6). Barack Obama. Other surprise of the night! He did very poorly. He looked and sounded uncomfortable, had very few on-point answers, pulled himself toward the center several times, pivoted to his "changing politics" schtick over and over again, and got beat up by the underdogs--unfairly, I thought--to a far greater extent than Clinton did.
That's all!
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