I just finished watching tonight's Democratic Presidential Debate on CNN and I must say I was very impressed with Sen. Clinton. I commented after the last debate in Philly that there was no clear winner. Well tonight, there was definitely a clear winner. Like her or not, Sen. Hillary Clinton won the debate hands down.
What is interesting to note is that most of the sparks in the debate took place in the first 15 minutes or so. Right from the start, Obama and Edwards went after Clinton, but unlike previous debates, Clinton responded. Clinton's forceful responses were spot on and she super-effectively made the case that she is the most qualified candidate to be President. I also find it interesting that after Clinton responded to her attackers, both Edwards and Obama left her alone for the remainder of the debate; she essentially shut them up.
Clinton's best response came when she was asked about playing "the gender card". Clinton correctly responded by saying that her opponents were not ganging up on her because she was is a woman, but rather because she is ahead. Another fact that will play to Clinton's favor is that she answered every question directly. No one can accuse her of parsing her answers or trying to get around the question. If anything, Obama had problems answering the questions directly; he himself got tripped up on the immigration question that Hillary messed up on in the last debate.
In the past few weeks, Obama has really grown as a candidate. He got a huge boost coming out of the last debate, but he completely failed to capitalize on that momentum tonight. Obama completely lost tonight. He indeed had one of his worst debate performances.
It would not surprise me if Hillary regains her strength and Obama loses his. Tonight was a complete win for the Clinton campaign and really a huge loss for everyone else involved. You could tell this by the crowd reaction. At the start of the debate, the audience was evenly split between Hillary, Edwards, and Obama. By the end of the night, the crowd loudly booed anything Obama or Edwards said negatively about Clinton. Clinton had managed to win over about 90% of the Las Vegas audience by the end of the night. And possibly the most important thing of all, Clinton looked the most presidential and she succeeded in presenting herself as the strongest, toughest, and most experienced candidate in the race.
As many of you know, I typically rank the candidates in the order in which I think they scored, but tonight there is simply no need for that. Sen. Clinton is the solid #1 winner. There is no reason to rank anyone else, because frankly, Clinton was in a totally different league then everyone else tonight.
With that being said, if you saw the debate and have any thoughts, please share them. I want to know what you think.
1 comment :
I thought Senator Clinton, Biden and Bill Richardson came out on top tonight. I will not rank them according to order. The loosers were Obama and Edwards. Obama was incoherent at times and did not respond well. Senator Dood did a fare job but he just was not asked a lot of questions. Richardson had some good answers but still does not come across well. Senator Clinton sort of put Obama and Edwards in their place when she remarked they were using republican tatics. Senator Biden had some good answers and shows his experience. Senator Clinton made a complete recovery from the last debate although I never thought she was as bad as the media said. The biggest loosers once again are the moderators.
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