Thursday, January 31, 2008

Hillary vs. Obama: The Wrapup

This debate was surprisingly... good. I won't vote for these candidates, but if I were a Democrat, I think I'd be pleased. Each one went out there and made their case in a pretty detailed, well-spoken, clear manner. It was more or less Obama and Hillary at their best.

Winner? I think Obama went into tonight ready to shift a bit to general election mode, and I'm not sure that was the right move at this exact moment. The time for "the pivot" to focus on pleasing independents, centrists, mushy middle soccer moms, etc., is coming soon, but it's not quite here yet, and I wonder if Democrats watching this in all the Super Tuesday states wanted a bit more red meat.

So both were good, but I give the win to Hillary. I don't think she made any gaffes tonight. She said things that we on the right find laughable, but I don't think her strategists will have any moments that will require damage control. She even seemed to justify her Iraq vote, to a liberal audience, better than ever before.

By contrast, Obama mentioned Bill Richardson. He mentioned Edwards several times, obviously playing for his voters, now looking for a new choice. He mentioned McCain three times, obviously trying to demonstrate he's ready to take on the Republican frontrunner. He reached to the middle by saying he didn't want to see horror movie trailers (commercials, I presume?) during American Idol; when he called for "restraint" within the industry, the scattered applause was strikingly quiet.

I feel like I could see the seams tonight, or since they were Hollywood, I could see the strings holding up the spaceships or the cheap, rushed computer-generated images. Obama's aim was a little too blunt, the effort a little too obvious.

Hillary knew she was still pitching herself to Democrats tonight, and she stuck to that. I don't think she had an off-note tonight, other than deploying the HA HA HA HA HA WHAT AN AMUSING SILLY QUESTION cackle that she uses as a defensive maneuver.

01/31 09:56 PMShare