Reply #15: While I didn't see the entire debate... [View All]

...the section I saw had both Obama and HRC doing effective jobs at presenting their positions. The wild card was Edwards. As others have noted, he seemed to have made the decision to side with Obama over Hillary (possibly in the hope of driving her out of the race?*), and his ripostes at her blunted the effectiveness of her attempts to go on the offensive, while allowing Obama to "take the high road." If Edwards had chosen, instead, to join Clinton in trying to deflate Obama, the dynamic of the debate might have been very different.

I also found it interesting that when Gibson closed the debate by asking the candidates what they wished they could take back from their performance in previous debates, a) Hillary refused to give a specific answer, instead changing the subject to "why Democrats would be more effective that Republicans," and b) Obama then proceeded to echo her approach almost word-for-word. It was as if Hillary felt she couldn't admit to any mistakes out of fear of seeming "weak," and Obama then decided that, if he admitted to something after she hadn't, it would make him look weak. Not a big matter, or anything that will lead tomorrow's news coverage of the debate, but I found it interesting regardless.


*or auditioning as Obama's running-mate, should his own run fall short?