Democratic Debate in Nevada

[WTFchris]

Did anyone watch that last night? I did. Obama didn't seem as collected as he normally does. He had trouble finding the right words. Hillary acted like Obama and Edwards should be under her somewhere like she's already won. I saw her as very arrogant last night.

CNN had this interesting fact about last night that I did not know:

Pre-caucus polls in Nevada make it a close race among the three, an event spiced by a lawsuit filed by several Clinton supporters hoping to challenge the ground rules.
Their objective was to prevent several caucuses along the Las Vegas Strip, where thousands of Culinary Workers Union employees -- many of them Hispanic or black -- hold jobs.
The rules were approved in May, when Clinton was the overwhelming national front-runner in the race. But the union voted to endorse Obama last week, and the lawsuit followed.

I like both Edwards and Obama, but I think Edwards did a great job last night. He stuck with his convictions and made sure the people know about that. He made it a point to call Hillary out on her support of some of the current policies in Washington.

[Fool]

That was talked about on MPR yesterday. I guess the claim was that the caucuses are to be held IN casinos where most of these employees already work therefore making more likely that they take part in larger numbers.

[Glenn]

From what I saw (flipping back and forth from the Pistons game), I thought Edwards clearly performed the best of the three.

I agree that Obama seemed a bit "off".

Hillary wasn't too bad, IMO, that was a nice move asking Obama if he would co-sponsor her resolution.

[WTFchris]

Chris Matthews was on CNN after saying he thought Hillary made a "power move" at the nomination by attacking Bush and asking them to join her. I wasn't impressed by her tactics at all. She's been too preachy for me all along. She talks about fighting for the people, but her tone is that of hollow messages.

[Zekyl]

No matter what happens, I will NOT vote for Hillary. It has nothing to do with her being a woman, I'd be fine with a female president. Just not THAT female. She's arrogant and she shows it. I've never liked her.

[Uncle Mxy]

Obama wants to actually think about the question he gets asked in a debate, rather than morph it into a set of talking points the way Edwards does (and Hillary's good too, but not in the league of Edwards, Bill Clinton today, or a Mike Huckabee for that matter). His first instinct tends to be to listen and to think about it, not talk right away, not attack right away. At times, that can be very presidential. At times, that can come across as indecisive. If he weren't a politician, you can tell he'd have been a professor, even if you knew nothing of his background teaching Consttutional law.

Obama can certainly lay down talking points in a speech as good as anyone. But, he has to think about engaging the crowd, or else he'll just be boring. (Bill Clinton had the same problem back as Arkansas Governor, and in his autobiography -- the dude is a policy wonk at heart.) Note that Presidents do a lot more speeches than they do debating for TV.