Watching Hillary Stumble a Bit in a New Hampshire Sports Bar

Thursday, September 27, 2007

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – So, if I was trying to find that rabid, rarin’ to go New Hampshire political passion, I probably was in the wrong place tonight at Libby’s Bar and Grill in Durham.

Picture your friendly neighborhood campaign correspondent, joined by five fine left-of-center bloggers in town for the MySpace event tomorrow – a genuinely great crowd to watch a Democratic debate with – entering a college town sports bar, whose clientele was infinitely more interested in watching ESPN than MSNBC.

It’s a fun enough place – plenty of beers on tap – but the kind of place where if you mention that you’re from Washington, the not-quite-entirely sober young lady at the bar will begin regaling you about her childhood journey to Washington and meeting “the President – I’m not sure whether it was Clinton or the one before him.” Must be a tough name to remember, as it's not in the news much anymore.

By the end of the first hour, a friend in the McCain camp was playing the “Big Buck Hunter” video game, and I don’t think I was the only blogger to find his skill with an electronic ‘varmint gun’ much more engrossing than the tail end of one of Hillary’s answers.

So – keeping in mind the environment in which I was watching the debate, which was either ideal or far from it, depending on what level of attention you think a Democratic debate warrants – here’s my take on tonight’s events.

Heading into tonight, I was convinced that it’s starting to get late for the Not Hillary candidates, and Obama, Edwards, or anyone who wasn’t running for Vice President had to come out swinging, and hard. The latest poll in New Hampshire has Hillary up big, still, and Iowa’s the only place anybody’s closer to her these days. If anybody’s going to get that majority or large plurality of the Democratic electorate to rethink their support of her, they’ve got to start shaking their faith in her soon.

My initial sense coming out of the bar was that despite a more pugnacious attitude from Obama, Edwards and Chris Dodd of all people, that nobody had come up with the oh-my-did-you-see-that zinger or exchange that they needed – the YouTube moment, what everybody is talking about tomorrow.

The closest anybody came to that moment might have come from Dodd, when asked to respond to President Bush’s expectation that Hillary would be the nominee. He said something to effect, “remember, this is the guy who said, ‘Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.’” His aim was to mock Bush’s predictive abilities, but he implicitly compared Hillary to “Brownie”, a.k.a. FEMA Director Michael Brown. I think he even generated some “ooohs!” for that comment.

(In fact, praise from Bush, or the perception that he finds her an acceptable successor, might be one of the few things that could derail Hillary. Mr. Vice President, your party may need you to endorse her.)

The post-game chat on MSNBC right now is saying that it wasn’t one of Hillary’s stronger performances, and I agree. She had two “I won’t answer that question” responses, one on Israeli strike on Iran, and again on Social Security. She initially insisted that Tim Russert’s question – wondering about Israel following up its strike on Syria with a strike on Iran, was a hypothetical.

Her second comment on Social Security, and how she refused to “negotiate with herself” was maybe the first time we’ve seen the cool, calm, professional mask slip. She didn’t quite lose her cool, but her voice got louder, and her fairly nonspecific, empty answer, seemed like rhetorical table-pounding – a lot of emphasis and emotion without a clear point.

The McCainiac and I exchanged incredulous glances when candidate after candidate said their preferred way to deal with Iran was direct talks, some of them mentioning Ahmadinejad. That prospect looks a little different after watching the man talk about God, the angels, the prophets and Islam for twenty-five minutes straight at Columbia University, and then follow it up by contending his country has no gay people. It took… how should I put it… the willing suspension of disbelief to contend that face-to-face meetings with Ahmadinejad seemed like a productive avenue to pursue. We concluded that the only man on stage who looked like he was willing to be tough on Iran was Tim Russert.

The discussion on sanctuary cities illustrated one of my great irritations with watching the Democratic debates; namely, that nobody actually debates anything. The candidates spend all their time agreeing with each other and echoing each other. The only person they debated tonight was Russert, by rejecting the premise of his questions. None of the Democratic candidates demonstrated much of an inclination to deter sanctuary cities, and all of them blamed problems on illegal immigration on insufficient federal resources.

Between Social Security and Iraq, John Edwards seemed to land more punches, and he got interrupted by applause when he said “there’s no excuse for politicians to have health care when there are Americans who don’t have health care.” He probably helped himself tonight – he’s definitely going to need to be at least this cutting on the frontrunner from here on out - but he’s got a lot of ground to make up. Perhaps tonight he began to make the case that he’s the true alternative to Hillary. Edwards might really thrive if debate organizers cleared out the riff-raff, and the Not-Hillary vote could coalesce behind either him or Obama.

Obama had one moment where he noted Hillary’s claim that her efforts for health care in the early nineties was a “lonely fight,” when he said, “You closed the door, Hillary.” If his message is that he’s post-partisan, or a guy who can bridge the divide in Washington, he’s got to take it another two steps, to emphasize that A) she can’t do that and B) her inability to do that will mean Democratic voters don’t get what they want.

By the way – the Democratic candidates support second-grade school storybooks that feature two princes marrying each other? Mrs. Obama has taught her 6-year-old and 9-year-old about gay marriage? The Democrats’ position on gay issues is striking, and I don't think it's because America is homophobic or hates gays and wants their lifestyle out of schools. I suspect many American parents would prefer their kids didn’t think about sex – heterosexual or homosexual - until they’re closer to puberty. That’s not enough for the Democratic candidates; they insist that children be taught what homosexuality is and that it’s okay as early as possible. I wonder if parents object more to the former than to the latter.

Mike Gravel’s answer on his personal bankruptcy – claiming that it was done for the good of the country - was the most riveting and shocking live moment in Democratic politics since Howard Dean’s scream. That answer should have turned him into a laughingstock, but it didn't, as he already is one.

09/27 12:10 AM Share