Democratic Candidates Debate in New Hampshire

Judged from the perspective of which candidate best achieved his or her strategic objective for the event, I think you have to say that Hillary Clinton came out on top. Given that she continues to maintain a substantial lead in national polling, her objective was essentially to play defense, i.e., run out the clock on the primaries and look ahead to the general election. She tried to avoid giving any of her opponents an opening to gain ground by repeatedly characterizing the Democrats as relatively close on the issues, and drawing attention to their mutual adversary in the White House. On Iraq she was effective in blaming Bush, deflecting attention from the charge that she has changed her own position on the war, and I thought that her explanation for not apologizing for her war authorization vote worked well enough. In general I thought she spoke well and came off as "presidential," with the glaring exception of her laughter, which last night fell somewhere between a screech and a cackle.

The biggest threat to Clinton's strategy is from Sen. John Edwards , I think, not Sen. Barack Obama, at least at this point. That's because Edwards is polling well in Iowa and New Hampshire, while Obama still trails Clinton badly in those states. Edwards' strategy last night was to hit a home run by attacking Clinton and Obama on Iraq (i.e., although they voted against the Iraq funding bill, they made no public statement on the issues prior to casting their votes). His line that "there's a difference between leadership and legislating" was a good one, but it comes off better in print than it did last night on live TV. I had a nagging sense that Edwards was pressing too hard, flailing a bit, in his effort to land the big blow. Obama took some of the sting out of the attack, as well, responding with that line about Edwards being "about four and a half years late to leadership on this issue."

It was fascinating to watch Barack Obama. His overall strategy is to rise above politics-as-usual, and to present himself as the next generation of leadership. However, this is a difficult strategy to implement in the context of a multi-candidate debate. The speaking opportunities were generally too short for Obama to achieve his inspiring cadence and tone, and he was compelled to descend into the fray of attack-and-counterattack. I think his performance was creditable, and as usual he had good command of issues and talking points, but I don't think he found any opening to gain ground on Clinton.

Among the other candidates, Sen. Chris Dodd and Gov. Bill Richardson had the best time of it, I thought. They had good specific responses and made a good showing of demonstrating a commanding presence. Richardson touted his impressive resume on every possible occasion, as he should, and I was especially impressed with his point that Bill Clinton ought to be used as a Middle East envoy. I like the man as a candidate and I think his trajectory is still upward. I did find it annoying that he repeatedly went over his allotted speaking time, but it was probably all part of the package as far as demonstrating gravitas and authority. Dodd's star is rising as he continues to speak well and displayed surprisingly presidential demeanor. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, standing on a box to look taller behind the podium, drew applause from the audience several times, as when he insisted that Democrats share blame with Republicans for the Iraq war. However, his simplistic (and false) claim that the Democrats have the ability to shut down the war by cutting off the funding drew a sharp and well-deserved rebuke from Dodd, who remarked that the voters are entitled to honesty from Democrats regarding the war after all the misinformation that was used to promote it. I think Kucinich is on a Nader-like trajectory toward irrelevance and universal aversion.