Liveblogging the Debate

All the candidates are doing shortened introductions: "I'm blank and I'm blank."  So I'm Ezra Klein, and I'll be joining Brian here tonight.  My commentary will be in bold, his in plain text.  Let's go.

Edwards and Clinton are predictably positioning themselves on opposite sides of the security debate. Predictably, on this issue, I’m with Edwards. I’m not, however, with Kucinich, who rehashed the old and utterly incorrect Benjamin Franklin idea that those “who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither.” Those people may be stupid, but they still probably ought to be safe and free, no? 

Frankly, Biden seems like the most presidential of the crew.  His refusal to directly criticize his colleagues was smooth, and his obvious intensity and knowledge of the issue speaks well of him.  But the Democrats, as a whole, are learning, and learning well.  As Wolf sought to get one to criticize another, most refused, and Clinton, Obama, and Biden all challenged the framing of the question.  Clinton and Obama both made clear that supporting the troops required more than just mindless continuation of their mission, and Biden fought to recenter the blame for the war on the president.  It was Edwards who shattered the moment's comity and went after Clinton and Obama, and my hunch is he looks the worse for it.  Particularly after Obama responded to Edwards' argument that the vote showed who's willing to lead and who follows by saying "John, I opposed the war from the start.  And so I think you're about four-and-a-half years late on leadership on this issue."  And Clinton's rejoinder was, usefully, about Bush, not the other Democrats -- as she said, "it's his war." 

Edwards came out of this looking poor, like he was grasping for position.  But the debate has, to be sure, begun with some drama, all of it enhanced by CNN's decision to center Edwards, Obama, and Clinton next to each other, in a single frame.

I agree with Ezra: It’s probably impolitic for Edwards to explicitly indict Clinton and Obama for not speaking out loudly against the war both before and immediately after voting against the Iraq resolution, but I’m certainly glad he did it. It predictably opened the door for Barack Obama to point out that Edwards came late to war-opposition and that voting against funding troops is a difficult vote. But there are two important things to remember--Edwards is right that the only way to end the war before Bush leaves office is for the Congress to do defund it, and that defunding it takes convincing people like Biden and those to his right to join our side. Clinton and Obama are strongly positioned to nudge him in that direction, but that takes effort from them. Obama said that it's important not to "play politics" on this issue. Waiting until the last minute to decide which way to vote is one of the oldest tricks in Congressional politics. 

And with that, Chinese food has arrived.

Which will, I assume, destroy the liveblogging.  Thankfully, we have DVR.  Which makes this DVR blogging.  Delicious, delicious, DVR blogging.  Though the evil machinations of Karl Rove made them forget our mu-shu and tofu and vegetables.  Curse you, Karl, you've won again.

Is it Constitutional for Congress to defund Mr. Chen’s Organic Chinese Food?

Kucinich raises the possibility that Congress can just neglect to reauthorize the war. It’s certainly true that they can do that. There are, of course attendant consequences for the operation of the U.S. governmnent. Meanwhile, DoD can freeze projects and reallocate existing money, which would allow the war to continue for at least a while anyhow. Biden’s response is right—Congress probably won’t be able to end the war before Bush is out of office. That said, Congress certainly has no chance of ending the war if Joe Frickin’ Biden refuses to vote to end it.

This is by far the most substantive and useful presidential primary debate I've seen.  Very effective exchange between Kucinich and Biden on the wisdom of voting against spending bills and whether the Democratic Congress has ability to actually defund the war.  Kucinich made a convincing case that it's their responsibility to do exactly that, while Biden made a yet better case that you need 67 votes.  They're actually engaging on the issues; Obama, Clinton, and Edwards have had plenty of time to battle it out; and Gravel and Kucinich are being smartly used to fulfill their best purpose: Say what the others won't.  Meanwhile, Richardson got the first immigration question.  Ah, identity politics.  Richardson makes his stand on retaining family unification policies and making sure guest workers have labor protections.  I'm pretty sure that, in the bill, they do.  And here's Biden arguing for earned citizenship over deportation.  "Being commander-in-chief means you have to occasionally be practical."  I'm genuinely liking him the best -- but he appears to believe we're building some sort of magical, drug=stopping fence.  It won't stop people, but it WILL stop 20 kilos of coke.  Odd fence, that.

Gravel on people who voted to authorize war in the first place: “It doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It just means they lack moral judgement.” That's an interesting type of "people."

Sadly this liveblog doesn't feature that much diagreement. Biden is correct that rounding up and deporting nearly 15 million illegal immigrants would be completely impossible. Almost as impossible is identifying and conducting thorough background checks on all or them. More impossible still is a border fence that doesn’t keep people out, but that does somehow magically stops those people who happen to be carrying drugs.

Trying to replicate the Republican debate that made news for forcing the candidates to raise their hands if they believed in abortion, Wolf asked the Democrats to raise their hands if English should be the official national language.  None but Gravel did.  And then, as Wolf tried to move on, Obama interjected, lambasting him for a question that meant to do "nothing more than divide us."  Clinton jumped in after, contextualizing the question by explaining that "official" means you can't print documents in other languages, can't employ translators at the hospitals.  Great moment for both of them, and shame on Wolf for oversimplifying the issue for a cheap visual gotcha.  Some debates have the disheartening effect of making the moderator look more presidential than the candidates.  This debate has been the precise opposite.

Clinton on health care: "What's important, and what I learned in the previous effort is you've got to have the political will, a broad coalition of business and labor and doctors and hospitals standing firm when the inevitable attacks come from the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies who don't want to change the system because they're making so much money from it."  Well said.

Meanwhile, Richardson jumps in: "Here's what we did: In New Mexico, we insured every child over 5."  As Dana snarked next to me, "My, how ambitious!"

Obama's defense of his lack of individual mandate was rehtrocially strong, but weak on the policy level.  He knows full well that the argument is over whether families don't want coverage, but whether some should be forced into the pool, and that those who are far from the system need a push.  He just doesn't want to defend a mandate.  But Edwards tried to jump on him because children can't make insurance decisions.  Obama has mandatory coverage for children.  Edwards need to be briefed better if he wants to make his stand here.

I’ll leave the nitty gritty health care wonkery to Ezra. I just want to say that Obama’s point about insuring everybody—that in California there’s an auto insurance mandate that 25 percent of drivers refuse to follow and that therefore an individual mandate on healthcare won’t actually get everybody covered—is a nice little thing to say. It also happens to be an unfair and misleading analogy.

Mid-debate roundup. The debate is, given the format, incredibly substantive. Ezra just pointed out that, in a gotcha question about what role Bill Clinton might play in any future administration, Richardson managed to outline a Middle East peace plan. Good job, guys. That said, I think that, on performance, Hillary Clinton looks exactly as she wants to look--commanding and forceful and a bit war mongerish. Obama's gaining momentum, though he started out slow. The bottom of the field (from Richardson down) looks exactly as you'd expect. Edwards looks meh. His attempts to single people out haven't had the impact I imagine he'd hoped and he's thus far lacked the same killer lines he got to use last time around. He should really keep on this one: "It's time to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war." That has stuck with me for many, many weeks.

Finally -- some liveblogging disagreement!  The second tier doesn't look as you'd expect.  Biden is the standout at this debate.  He looks more like a president than any of the others, and both the substance and framing of his replies have been sound and, at times, superior.

Asked about the VA health system, Gravel reveals that he gets his meds there.  Hmmm, maybe they're worse than I thought.  He then goes on to lambast Obama -- who's on the Veteran's Committee and who he seems to particularly dislike -- on the Walter Reed scandal.  Walter Reed, of course, isn't a VA hospital, it's an army hospital, and thus not under Obama's purview.  Obama, sadly, doesn't point this out.  Sigh.

Unfortunately, there's little disagreement. I agree that Biden looks as good  as, or perhaps better, than anybody on stage. That said, I did manage to totally forget he was there. Which happens often, and which, given how closely I tend to follow these things, can't be a good thing for the man.

Blah, blah, blah diplomacy. Options on the table.

In another of Blitzer's moronic hypotheticals, he asks, "would you kill bin Laden if it meant innocent civilians would die?"  Hands go up, and Kucinich blurts out, "well, how many civilians are we talking about?"  Indeed.  Clinton also earns my appreciation by attacking hypothetical questions. 

Oh, Joe Biden. That's not how you solve the Darfur crisis. There's only one way to solve that crisis: Hope. Audacious hope.

Same stupid hypothetical: "raise your hand if you'd use military force in Darfur." It's a Catch-22. The Democrats on the stage did exactly the right thing to clamor for clarification: "Just what the hell does "military force" mean when you're talking about Darfur." Unfortunately it's was just the sort of "nuanced" moment Republicans will pounce on them for. Jerks!

Blitzer-sucks moment: A good question from the audience on whether the candidates support national service. National service is an interesting policy idea. I don't happen to really support it, but it doesn't much matter, because it's an idea that remains confined to the minds of idealistic people and to theoretical debates between intellectuals and policy wonks. So, of course, rather than ask the real contenders about this and give them a chance to answer "no" or to render the idea of national service in a more politically feasible way, he put the question to Gravel and Kucinich. This is part of the reason why radical ideas stay radical. Kucinich, interestingly, supports putting young Americans into national service , including into the military that he plans to drastically downsize.

Richardson: "I'm a pro-growth Democrat."  Ben Adler replies: "I'm an anti-puppies and kittens Democrat."  Jesus, Richardson, say something interesting, or useful, or brave.  His comments are a mixture of Republican frames and uninspired, incrementalist policy platitudes.  Just a remarkable disappointment.

That's true. But Edwards is looking better now. However, when asked what a rich person is, instead of saying "I don't quite know" or whatever his exact words were, he should've just said "me." Or maybe "me and my colleagues on stage."

Thanks, Brian, for posting my joke without attribution.  Jerk.  But it's okay, I can rise above it. "Referring to her husband's destruction of the deficit, Clinton says, "We're going to have to do that hard work again."  Oy.  Is she really going to commit to that?  And if she doesn't get a supercharged, tech-driven economy to work with?  Democrats have to stop diving into deficit-reduction like this.  Meanwhile, Biden just called for the public financing of elections, Clinton said her first move as president would be two bring the troops home, Obama added health care to the withdrawal, and Edwards mentioned everything on his agenda.

Kos's open threads seem to indicate that the netroots seem to think Obama and Edwards are the winners here. I'm inclined to mostly agree, but mainly because Edwards' semi-lackluster performance still hit the right netroots notes. Unfortunately, his open threads are a madhouse. Fortunately, my comment threads are much more manageable. Unfortunatly, my comment threads are almost completely empty

Comments

[Passing Shot]

I do believe Ben Franklin's maxim. What I don't appreciate, however, is Kooch and Gravel labelling this "the Democrats' war." This is not helpful.

[jacqueline]

i agree with your mid-debate roundup, ezra...
clinton appears capable,engaged, "competent", but not very inspiring....
i guess she would be good enough.
a dependable brand.
i find her frequent references to "my husband" are somewhat irritating.

obama looks like a very respectable and competent vice-president...
....it is not a shining hour for john edwards.
........i still wish that al gore would stride out onto the stage. i dont see his brilliance or visionary grasp or inspiration on that stage.
there is no al gore up there.

[jasmine]

I can't at all keep up with the threads at Kos and MyDD.

You kids are doing a good job. I've been following you.

[Nanette]

Same here, I really enjoyed the liveblogging here... easy to follow, hitting the high points and giving a bit of good commentary.

Good work, thanks.

[JimPortlandOR]

Which one is batman and which one robin in this blogging duo?

What impressed me is that the Dems have a really outstanding field of candidates, even including the outliers - which contributed to moving the left border of respectable progressive discussion more than a bit.

My proudest moment was the unhesitating, unqualified uniform response to the question of whether 'don't ask, don't tell' should be abolished for gays and lesbians.

No cracks there in the unanimity with a resounding 'yes' from all (with hands raised quickly, too). Was it Gravel or Dodd that said the president should do as Harry Truman did and just tell the military chiefs to end the discrimination? (and, obviously, have Congress repeal the law as well)

Good live-blog guys.

[Fred]

I'd generally agree, though Biden came across as a bit cranky, though his emotional rises aren't new nor unappreciated to a degree. I felt Edwards and Dodd gave the more substantive responses though it seemed to take Edwards a while to warm up. Obama did excellent and Hillary seemed to come off as a "me too" on just about every subject. Gravel is a joke, please send him home.

[glen]

Good job! Hope you'll do the same for the republicans... maybe give some pre-debate predictions and/or ask your readers to do the same.

[Zack]

Hey Brian (and Ezra), I guess I'll have to try to do some heavy lifting to fill up your comments section. Here are some superficial comments about how the candidates looked, actual policy questions ignored. (It really seemed like there was a fair amount of agreement on how a Democratic president should act.)

I was really pleasantly surprised by Hillary, actually, obnoxiously frequent references to "my husband" aside. Primarily just that I wasn't filled with a visceral hatred whenever she spoke... But she really tended to say the right things. As one of youse guys noted, when she reprimanded Blitzer for the ridiculous hypothetical questions, that was a strong moment. I still don't plan to vote for her and don't want her to be the nominee, but I sort of wonder if I've been too hard on her.

Agree with you on Edwards underperforming -- it felt like he was too focused on criticizing Obama and Clinton at times and that he didn't have the same articulation we've seen at other times. The health care spat with Obama and Clinton, where he ought to have shone, misfired.

About some of the second/third tier candidates -- Mike Gravel's fidgety body language is sort of fascinating to watch. However, he's stopped being interestingly quirky in that grumpy grandpa way and now just goes after the other candidates for highly mixed reasons. I've had enough of Chris Dodd. I definitely wasn't as high on Joe Biden as you were. His immigration spiel was a definite low point and didn't sound so smart on Darfur (although nice job with the Iran question.)

[Taylor]

Great work here guys--much appreciated. Brian, your comment threads might be modest but keep the good stuff coming.

[Brian]

Thanks, all. It was fun. On Biden, I think he performed well. That said, I think he's a pretty disagreeable blowhard. Likewise, I think Edwards performed medium only, but the bulk of people out there, including many who will define the mainstream memory of this debate, are giving him very high marks.

Here's is a strange, lame media quirk. A friend and I were just joking about how most big commenters can't help but append a candidates actual performance quality with their perceived chance of winning:

Talking Head A: Chris Dodd (who does not stand a chance of winning) is performing wonderfully.

Talking Head B: Hillary Clinton (who will win the nomination) took a shit on stage.

And this is one reason numbers tend not to move much.

[zenyenta]

I thought most of them did well to make the debate truly substantiative, given the type of responses Blitzer was trying to elicit. The questions from audience members seemed a lot more intelligent and less manipulative to me. Too bad they didn't get to pick who responded to them. Or that each candidate didn't get the chance to answer.

Clinton's appearance, manner and even her voice were greatly improved over the last debate. She handled questions well. Didn't lose ground, may have gained even more.

Obama also came off very well. It's hard to see how he could be hurt by this outing.

Edwards was disappointing to me. I've been leaning more toward him than otherwise and this appearance kind of gave me pause. It's understandable that he took the opportunity to rap the others in the Top Three. It was a debate, after all, and where their positions differ his are often just better. Nonetheless, it came off sounding off key somehow and, of course, it looked like he was playing the moderators' game while the others refused to go along. He should be able to improve on this performance in the future. He'll need to.

Richardson should just give up TV appearances. They're not working out for him lately.

Biden looked good to me, but nothing seems to give him any traction anyway, so I guess that doesn't matter.

Kucinich was being Kucinich. Sometimes he brings up points that belong in the discussion, sometimes it seems like he's living on another planet.

Dodd's did just fine, but like Biden, it doesn't seem to matter.

Gravel is way out there, but without the benefit of adding comic relief.

[joejoejoe]

Was Chris Dodd wearing a cloaking device during your live blog? Mr. Chen got more play. Was Biden that more impressive than Dodd? I kind of lump them together yet Biden got a lot of play in your liveblog and Dodd none.

[anon]

Biden seemed to be doing an imitation of George C. Scott doing an imitation of a president. He seemed more angry than presidential. He probably went home and kicked his dog. He might make a good moderator for the Republican debates. Or serve as a villainous dean in a coming of age film about students in a second rate military college.