Last night’s CBC debate in Baltimore wasn’t substantively different from last week’s in Albuquerque. Dems who voted for the Iraq war resolution continued to try and explain why they really didn’t mean anything by it, while Kerry and Gephardt still aren’t going after Dean the way the press expects them to.
Other random thoughts:
* I counted five times when candidates brought up John Ashcroft. There must be an internal DNC poll out there showing that Dem primary voters consider him just as awful as Bush. My favorite reference was from John Kerry: “Well, you know, I look out at this audience, and there are people from every background, every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is, indeed, John Ashcroft’s worse nightmare here.” Cute.
* Dick Gephardt returned, once again, to the “miserable failure” line. (Just as an aside, Gephardt’s campaign even registered A Miserable Failure.com last week.) Fortunately, unless I missed something, he only used it once.
* My favorite line of the debate was from Howard Dean when he was asked if he’d have trouble connecting to the African American community considering that Vermont’s population is less than 1% black. Dean said, “If the percent of minorities that’s in your state has anything to do with how you can connect with African American voters, then Trent Lott would be Martin Luther King.” While the line was funny, it was equally funny to me to see Dean’s eyes light up when the question was being asked. Dean had obviously been dying to use this line and when the question came, he was almost relieved.
* Joe Lieberman removed any lingering doubts and officially became the “attack Dean” candidate. Lieberman did it last week on trade (and was right, by the way) and did it again last night on Israel. In both instances, Dean seemed to expect the criticism and had thought out — though not terribly persuasive — responses. I don’t think either of Lieberman’s attacks left Dean with long-term problems. That is not to say, however, that Dean is going to coast through the controversy about his wanting the U.S. to stay “neutral” on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
* John Edwards continues be the most personable of the candidates. He was all-too-aware that going after Al Sharpton’s fiery rhetoric put him at an awkward disadvantage. Yet Edwards seemed to handle it with a good sense of humor.
* On the race issue, Dean’s finally come up with a better answer than “I had two black roommates at Yale,” which had been his response earlier this year. Last night he said, “I’m the only white politician that ever talks about race in front of white audiences. Black folks have heard lectures from white politicians for a long time. We always talk about race. White folks need to talk to white people in America about race.” I don’t think it’s true that he’s the only white politicians talking about race to white audiences, but it’s still a good answer.
* The Dem candidates, unlike Bush, haven’t forgotten about al Queda. Last week, Carol Mosley Braun mentioned “Osama been missing.” Last night, Bob Graham offered us, “Osama been forgotten.” Both elicited chuckles from the crowd.
* There’s a two-week break until the next debate, which will be in New York. Who knows, by then we may have a tenth presidential candidate…