It's Gonna Get Ugly For Barack and Hillary

Me too! It's a slugfest. I thought Edwards was looking good by staying above the fray but then he dived in too. Crazy!

Lets bring Chisholm back!!!


"In the end antiblack, antifemale, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing - antihumanism."

-Shirley Chisholm

This debate is unbelievable. After Obama and Clinton attempt to kill each other, which was great, but now, Edwards, he claims that unlike a black guy or a woman, he, the white guy, can compete anywhere in America against John McCain. This guy is unbelievably stupid. Worse than I thought.

They are arguing over who can beat a REpublican, I've been there, I've done that, good grief, these people are pathetic, worse than children.

Edwards says I will not have a lobbyist in the White House, holy mackerel, this is unbelievable. A bunch of juveniles. Of course, Edwards won't get money from trial lawyers, perish the thought, Hillary just pointed that out, ha ha ha ha. This is fabulous.

Has anyone said anything about any policy yet?????

The only Democratic candidate that has no lobbyist or Bundlers wasn't allowed to be there.

Kucinch!

http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/

I didn't see all of it, but of what I saw, it was horrible. These candidates are a total disaster, just my honest opinion, especially Edwards and Clinton. From what I saw, Obama is the only one that is halfway reasonable. This guy might be thinking deep down that hey, I might be better off being a Republican, at least they have some sense. You could see it in his eyes, Clinton and Edwards are the biggest phonies and I can't believe I am here arguing with these dolts.

Wow

As much as I am keen to find evidence of duplicity in what the Clinton's have to say, I must admit that I missed the sub-text of a charismatic black man requiring a white president to move forward. Perhaps I'm not as cynical as I imagined.

It seemed to me that she was simply making the point that in order for a dream to come true there must be practical experience as well as vision. MLK, irrespective of his race, is a perfect example of a visionary that appeals to all Democrats. Who else within the Liberal/Democratic pantheon would have been suitable as a simile for Obama?

Jack and Bob Kennedy were in no way the visionaries King was, but that quality is invested within them per Liberal legend. However, irrespective of race, neither are suitable because first of all they each were members of the power elite, and secondly, neither had a complimentary co-star with which Hillary could be identified.

Who else is left?

Rachel Carson?
John Dewey?
Ethel & Julius Rosenberg?
Matthew Shepherd?

Seems to me that MLK was a fine choice for the narrative she wanted to convey: dreams and inspiration are wonderful and can move mountains, but not without the help of an experienced hand wielding power. Better then to leave the inspirational to inspire the masses, and trust the experience to actually perform the mechanics that will ensure change occurs.

I was a little surprised that she was willing to make a comparison between herself and LBJ, but perhaps his image has been rehabilitated among Democrats in the long decades since Vietnam. There is some truth to what she was saying of course. LBJ was the consummate politician and driving civil rights legislation to passage within that time frame was a Herculean labor. Not just any politician would have been able to do it. I seriously doubt that Hillary or even her Super Pol husband would have.

I don't see how it denigrates the legacy of King to state what is basically the truth: at that time and place he needed LBJ to make his dream (if only partially) come true. If not LBJ, then eventually someone else, but frankly, if not MLK then eventually someone else as well. The idea of equal rights among Americans regardless of race was much bigger than them, and, without them, would not have fallen into history's dustbin of clever ideas and fanciful hopes.

In any case, some black activists are, rightly or wrongly, extremely sensitive to what they perceive to be any attempt to diminish King's legacy, and any comments that might even smack of racism, and so it was to be expected that the Clintons' remarks would have ruffled some feathers. In fact, one might argue that the Clintons of all politicians would have expected it, and therefore must have counted on it.

But why would they intentionally invite accusations of racism? To, as engineer suggests and Juan Williams believes, reduce Obama to The Black Candidate?

Frankly, I don't think even the Clintons are this byzantine, but if they are then we should be able to understand how such a strategy would be of help to them.

How are Hillary's chances for winning the nomination enhanced by reducing Obama to The Black Candidate?

Arguably, it has increased his support among black voters that previously may have wondered if he was "black enough," and reduced her own. Doesn't she need the black vote to win the nomination in the spring, and the White House in November?

Perhaps the White House, but the nomination? After Iowa, Hillary was confronted with the cruel truth that she was not guaranteed to win the nomination, that she could not fun a general election campaign during the primaries. A new calculus needed to be developed.

In order for this strategy to be successful, however, the reduction of Obama to The Black Candidate must diminish his chance to win more than whatever fallout from the ploy diminishes hers.

Are there white and latino primary voters less likely to vote for The Black Candidate than for Obama the Everyman? Television and print pundits regularly comment (in hushed tones and euphemisms) that latino voters are not inclined to vote for a black candidate, so presumably the more Obama is identified as black, the less support he will draw from latinos. Objective #1 accomplished.

But do latino voters hold the nomination in their hands? Probably not, but any increase in their support of Clinton might offset her loss of black support.

Ultimately, however, if there is a strategy behind all of this, it has to depend upon Obama's reduction to The Black Candidate diminishing his support among white Democrats.

But why would white democrats be less inclined to vote for The Black Candidate than Obama The Everyman? Are white democrats, like their latino fellows, not inclined to vote for a black candidate? If so, then it is essential that Obama's racial identity remain out of focus, and that is surely not the case with The Black Candidate.

Somewhat less offensive, but perhaps no less dependent upon bigotry, would be the concern of white Democrats that The Black Candidate cannot win in the general election. Certainly this has played on the edges of the minds of Democratic primary voters. After all, we know how prejudiced the great unwashed are. Can the Party risk the chance of getting the White House back by nominating The Black Candidate to run for the presidency?

I don't put this sort of thinking past any campaign's strategists, nor do I put it past the Clintons, but it just seems too calculated, too precise. One of the reasons I have no faith in conspiracy theories is that they usually require clockwork execution by the conspirators, and such meticulousness is rarely, if ever, seen outside of fiction.

Of course there is also the theory that the Obama campaign engaged surrogates to raise questions about the motives of the Clintons to increase support for Obama among blacks and to raise the spectre among white Democrats that Hillary's ambition will drive her to the most scurrilous ploys.

In the end, it's my conclusion that the whole dust-up was the unintended consequence of two campaigns fiercely competing for the same prize. However, I don't believe it could have occurred if not for existing fault-lines in the party, that it has widened the fault-lines, and that we haven't seen the end of it.

Saying it a different way, Finn, you are onto something very inciteful. Hillary is the same as saying, yes MLK was inspiring, but it took a powerful guy like LBJ to actually accomplish anything when he ran the place, and now Obama, you guys can do the work, you can inspire and have ideas, but it is us, the guys that have the power and own this place and all of you, that you need to trust to run this place. This place could be called the plantation. On this plantation, you do the work, and we take care of the business, and we will feed and clothe you. Part of that is the socialism part. But the important ingredient is, we will run this place.

When I say "we," I am talking as if I am the Clinton machine, the traditional Democrat machine. It hasn't changed from when LBJ made his statements about how it worked.

I have said this many times, but Democrats, wake up, this is a good opportunity to take a good look at these people for what they are. How long will it take before alot more blacks decide to leave the plantation behind and forsake the Democratic Party? That is the question. This race offers a rare opportunity for some to wake up. Maybe even Obama himself? Maybe it will take a few years, I don't know, maybe I'm being overly optimistic about him. Somehow when I hear him speak and look at his opponents, you know he is thinking these people are embiciles. He is so much smarter than they are, it is obvious.

That was brutal...

You know, my take was - the Clinton campaign, they've basically been baiting Obama, for a couple weeks now, baiting and baiting him, and then during the debate here again. And finally they succeeded. He lost his cool, kinda. Not angry, he gave as good as he got, nothing more. But he was genuinely, sincerely upset - and I can damn well understand it, but it was visible - basically, they succeeding in getting him in this defensive crouch, and off his game. Which must have been the point from the start.

Thats what characterised the rest of the debate too - in the second half the other two just cheerfully got back into their uplifting speechifying, and he was still simmering - and damn, I would be too, I would be pissed - but it was frustrating. Frustrating to see how they got him buckled under.

The Hillary campaign must have gotten exactly what they planned. Tear him down to the level of a conventional politician, play up nonsense stuff like the "present" votes to make him look like just a regular pol like any other. In order to bog him down in defending his record so he wouldnt ever get the chance to get round to doing what he's really good at, to get into his thing, the inspirational, transformative, uplifting appeal.

Hell, it was Edwards and Hillary who in the end were doing the uplifting stuff - and I was watching the second half on this CNN.com channel where you can see this graph with the reactions of a random group of spectators who are outfitted with a mouse to instantly show their (dis)approval, and it was Edwards and Clinton who got to reap the 70+ scores for their bouts of uplifting inspirational rhetorics, while Obama got 50-60 scores for still strenuously trying to put the record straight on policy issues that had been brought up.

It really sucked watching it happen, actually - I felt like I was witnessing live the Clinton campaign tearing Obama down and bogging him into place - and then whistlingly walking away with the rewards for rhetorics that should be his. That were his.

I guess that, you know, he was just strategically outclassed - and its true, against the Republicans in the general election he would face even worse than this, so its good to be tested yadda yadda, and Hillary showed that she will really do anything needed to win these elections, mud wrestling included, yadda yadda, but dude - it was just mean, too. Not fair.

Well, hopefully with Hillary acting like an outright b!tch at least some of the time and Obama faltering under the pressure, perhaps Edwards will get the chance to get back in the race one way or another. But it might be too late already to make a difference one way or another, and if Hillary makes it through this way I'll grudgingly accord her points for strategic savvy that the Democrat will need in November, but I'll also be helluva resentful.

All that said, there was some hefty wonky debate on policy and substance, and that was pretty fierce too but good fierce; and they did show a grip on policy detail that I havent seen in the Republican debate, and they sure all showed a passion and devotion to issues of poverty, struggling middle class families, equality, the day-to-day economic concerns of regular people that the Republicans dont seem to give much of a hoot about..

But I did feel like this debate was one for the books, and not in a good way. I'm really curious what the media spin of it will be, who will be judged to have done well or badly, cause you know that three-quarters of the voters who hear of it one way or another will never see much of the debate itself but only what the pundits said about it..

I'm guessing the CW will be that Hillary played dirty, but did show the cojones that prove she's ready for any fight in the generals as well; that Obama was a good, idealistic guy who was ambushed and faltered under the pressure (which might cost him or possibly, though I'm not optimistic, get him sympathy/solidarity points like Hillary got in NH); and that Edwards came off looking best, but probably without it making any difference. That would roughly be my scorecard, anyhow - well, right now, off the top of my head.

My take again, nimh. Obama is clearly the smarter of the three. And the Clintons have had their turn, the country is tired of them. If she had an ounce of decency, or if they had an ounce of decency, or the party had any decency, they would concede to Obama right now.

I guarantee you, you would not see this type of exchange in the Republican Party if a black was running. It would be based on issues, not childish and veiled references to race. It was a total embarrassment. People that are the apologists will want to justify it, but you know it was an embarrassment. The Democrats are the party of race and groups, and when are people going to get fed up with it? If this country elects Ms. Clinton to the Whitehouse, it will have voted for an immature and petulant child, and it won't be pretty.

And as far as Edwards, its over for him, no chance.

I kind of understand your take, nimh, but I didn't see it as negatively for Obama as you do. Yes, it sucks they succeeded in making him defend himself. And it pissed me off too. But he didn't have any choice. What he showed was that he can go toe to toe and he's not cowed or intimidated, and he scored points. He also succeeded in pushing her into that shrill, bitchy, persona that she's been trying to hide, as well as getting in the dig about both Bill and her running for president. He successfully answered her attacks, and that needed to be done. And frankly, he's going to need to keep doing that all the way to the convention. She's ahead and kicking dust in his eyes because he's gaining on her. He showed he's not going to slow down or pull over.

I agree it was brutal, but I don't think Obama had any choice.

I don't know if you were reading body language, but from what I heard (from my spot laying next to my daughter trying to get her to sleep) he pretty much had the floor for the second half and settled into that easy humor we've heard on the campaign trail. That "was Bill Clinton the first black president" question for example. From the clips, it looked Hillary was the one trying hard to snap out of combative persona and into the soft, motherly one.

When it comes down to it, I think the money lines from this debate all belong to Obama and Edwards. I'm interested to see what the buzz about this is from others though, since my opinion is starting to be heavily weighted towards Obama.

I admit I didn't listen to the whole debate, but did anyone, anyone, anyone hear anything substantial concerning any political policy?

Perhaps he could sue the voters.

There was a woman in the audience - I swear - who was asleep.

The camera stayed on her long enough to tell - she looked very peaceful lol. Hoping someone picked up on it and youtubes it.

Quite a bit about health care. But you presume that anyone actually cares about policy in a primary. The candidates are all Democrats whose policy differences aren't great in number or in magnitude.

Did I dream it or did each one of them say they'd end the war and bring all of the troops home asap?

One other issue that wasn't resolved as far as I heard, did Clinton actually refer to Ronald Reagan, perish the thought, or did she not, after all that would be a felony. Hang Obama, he mentioned Reagan and he even complimented the man. Obama, you have much to learn, you would be less criticized, maybe even complimented for mentioning Osama Bin Laden as a very bright man, or perhaps even Adolf Hitler before even dreaming of mentioning Reagan, that is a cardinal sin.

I don't think I have ever seen Ms. Hillary so animated as when she insisted she must set the record straight, it wasn't her that mentioned Reagan, it was only her husband, now does everyone have that right, yes, don't ever misunderstand that point, she would never, never, swear on something, that she would ever utter the words, Ronald Reagan.

Personally the whole thing is making me a little disgusted (the debates and compaigning) and I am going to just ignore it all from this point onward and vote for whoever ends winning the democratic primary since I like any of them anyway.

Great, I found the debate commentary, thanks everyone!

I watched through "I don't know who I'm running against sometimes," and I made some sort of appreciative noise, which reminded E.G. that I'd said I'd only watch for a little while and then go to bed. (We'd just stayed up late the night before watching the playoff game and I had no capital.)

OK, so sounds like that was about the way it went for a while. I was definitely amazed and shocked at how it was going, never decided if I was good-shocked or bad-shocked. I was happy to see Obama finally answering stuff. The close-up of his face when he said, "What she said was not true..." Whoo!

Like nimh, I'm interested in the post-debate analysis 'cause I agree that's what a lot of people actually pay attention to.

So far the consensus seems to be that voters want to know that a candidate can battle in the general election if need be, and that Obama served himself well by showing that he can battle. But there is some question about whether Hillary battled BETTER, in which case the outcome isn't clear.

I haven't yet seen anyone declare a clear winner.