Why We Worry

I’ve never tried to do this… but here goes nothing…

8:05
Hillary looks understandably tense. She spent the first half of her opening statement on shoutouts to Texas. The rest was largely devoted to health care and other domestic issues.

8:10
Obama sounds a little under the weather. He spent a great deal of time talking about fighting special interests. Obama says Clinton has good ideas, but the implication is that she is beholden to special interests.

8:15
Clinton won’t work or meet with Raul Castro until Cuba shows some change toward becoming more open. Obama says he would meet with Cuban leaders without preconditions, but with an agenda of making Cuba a more free society. He would also loosen restrictions on travel to Cuba as an olive branch. Point for Obama in my book. We both agree that our stance toward Cuba has been a miserable failure.

8:20
Clinton wants to negotiate with countries like Iran, but sticks to preconditions to a presidential meeting. She wants bipartisan diplomacy, whatever that means. She gets the first applause line by talking about ending the “arrogance” of the Bush administration. Obama wants to avoid appearing arrogant to the world by abandoning preconditions.

8:25
Obama talks about ending tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations that outsource. He wants stronger labor, environmental and safety standards mandated in our trade deals. Obama reiterates that he is the one that can create a coalition to actually make these changes. He doesn’t really answer the question of how he’d handle things differently than Clinton. Hillary wants a trade timeout, I’m not sure how that’d work. Ditto for a moratorium on home foreclosures. Clinton also mentions wanting Green jobs in the stimulus package, as well as increased spending on infrastructure. She wants to end the Bush war on science. Point to Clinton.

8:30
Clinton would stop raids on illegal alien homes and workplaces except in egregious situations to Protect the Children. She wants Comprehensive Immigration reform with a path to legalization. Obama agrees, but he wants to tone down the rhetoric in the country to stop the supposed increased violence on Hispanics. I’m glad Obama mentions fixing the Mexican economy. I’d say it’s a wash though.

8:35
Clinton wants to review the idea of a border wall, because it doesn’t need to be built everywhere, like across college campuses. She wants to use “smart” border technology rather than a physical barrier in many places. Obama agrees almost entirely, then he sort of rambles on about fairness and order. Obama makes a good point about letting the children of illegal aliens who grew up in America go to universities and colleges.

8:40
Clinton wants English to be our “common” language but not our official language, and encourages all people to learn a second language. Obama agrees. They both deserve boos for being too afraid to make English our official language.

8:50
Clinton evades the question about her recent accusations that Obama is an empty suit. She says the campaign has been spirited but civil. Uh oh, she brought up the recent Chris Matthews grilling of an Obama advocate, where he couldn’t mention a single Obama accomplishment in the Senate. In summation: I’m not saying he’s nothing but talk, I’m implying he’s nothing but talk.

8:55
Obama mentions some of his legislative accomplishments. Obama says that Clinton was wrong to say his supporters are fools for thinking he’ll bring about change. I’m glad he’s taking this line, it should be clear that she is insulting the intelligence of the voters. Obama destroys Clinton’s argument that he’s been plagiarizing his friend and campaign co-chair’s speeches. He suggests she is playing petty politics.

9:00
Obama continues the attack, claiming that he is Xeroxing his speeches. She got some boos for that one. Well deserved. Now Hillary is saying she is taking more aggressive policy stances than Obama. That’s definitely true in terms of health care. Obama should just agree with her health care plan already. Obama takes a cheap shot at Hillary. He says she was wrong to say his health care plan doesn’t cover everyone. Well, Clinton is right, his plan doesn’t cover everyone.

9:10
Clinton evades the question about her claim that she is the only candidate ready to be Commander-in-chief. She brings it back to health care instead. Obama should avoid the health care issue, Hillary is cleaning the floor with him. Universal is always gonna sound better than almost-universal.

9:15
Clinton evades the Commander-in-chief question again. Obama says his number one job as President is to keep America safe. I thought it was to uphold the Constitution? Obama makes the case that he is more ready to be Commander-in-chief because he was right about Iraq. I won’t argue with that. Obama’s story about U.S. troops having to steal weapons from the Taliban because they can’t get properly equipped by our government is really interesting if true.

9:20
CNN’s John King is pimping for McCain, Petraeus and the Surge; he asks Clinton how she can possibly oppose it. Clinton says that the Surge hasn’t yielded political reconciliation in Iraq, and is a failure since that was its purpose. Clinton makes a strong pledge to leave Iraq because it’s hurting us and the Iraqis.

9:25
Obama says the Surge’s success in bringing down the violence is a tactical one, and still doesn’t solve the strategic blunder that was the invasion in the first place. He makes the point that our aid to S. America is about what we spend in Iraq a week. He thinks the money spent in Iraq could be better spent elsewhere and then goes on to attack John McCain’s judgment on Iraq for that reason.

9:30
Uh oh… my DVR ran out… I don’t think there wasn’t much more to go.

My Conclusion
I’ve watched so many of these things that it’s all starting to run together. Each candidate mostly repeats their talking points from the other debates with few fresh rhetorical nuggets.

As usual, I think Obama won on foreign policy, while Clinton owned the issue of health care. However, I think Clinton lost overall. Her attacks on Obama seemed scripted and contrived. By not attacking her back, Obama magnified his air of imperturbability.

My final words: I doubt this helped or hurt either of them. 

Flickr photo by qqLauraqq

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