Maybe presidential candidates are less aggressive early in the morning, but yesterday’s 8 a.m. debate in Iowa was surprisingly docile. If the YouTube debate was the event at which the gloves came off, yesterday was time for the gloves to go back on.
John Edwards said Hillary Clinton “did a terrific job” in fighting for health care in the 1990s.
Clinton said Joe Biden was “absolutely right” in describing how difficult it is going to be to get out of Iraq.
Chris Dodd said, “I agree with what Hillary has just said here” about mere mortals not being able really to understand “the wisdom and power of God.”
If debates are intended to be opportunities for candidates to create contrasts between themselves and their rivals, yesterday was largely a friendly get-together. On Middle East policy, Barack Obama said, “I don’t actually see that much difference” between his position and those of his critics. A few minutes later, John Edwards added, “[T]he differences between us, whether it’s Senator Clinton or Senator Dodd or Governor Richardson or Senator Biden, all of whom I have enormous respect for, the differences between all of us are very small compared to the differences between us and the Republican candidates, who the best I can tell are George Bush on steroids.”
To be sure, this isn’t a complaint or a criticism. I was actually kind of relieved — the temperature seemed to be rising in recent weeks, and I was afraid that if things got really ugly in August, the animosity would be dangerous by the winter. I suspect, therefore, that yesterday’s pull-back was intentional — the campaigns implicitly understand that there’s no real value in taking pot shots when most voters aren’t particularly engaged anyway.
Stephanopoulos did his level best to goad the candidates into attacking their rivals, probably because it makes for better television. The very first question of the debate was: “Senator Biden, you stepped into this last week. You told Newsweek magazine that Senator Obama is “not yet ready” to be president. Senator Clinton, is he right?” (Clinton didn’t take the bait.)
I guess I can’t say I was surprised by Stephanopoulos’ efforts, but after a while, it was rather comical. At one point, the ABC host said, “I want to move on to another issue we’re hearing about a lot from the voters from Iowa in the poll. More voters wrote in questions for us on the issue of Iraq than any other single issue. They all wanted to know what your plans were to get out of Iraq, and to get out safely from Iraq.”
It came 25 minutes into the debate, after a protracted discussion about whether Dems should find Obama qualified, and whether they should find Clinton electable. If we have to wait nearly a half-hour in a 90-minute debate for a substantive question, it’s a problem.
Worse, given the limited time constraints, this was one of the least serious questions of the campaign season: “We’ve got a question — we’ve got an e-mail question from Seth Ford of South Jordan, Utah. And he said, ‘My question is to understand each candidates’ view of a personal God. Do they believe that, through the power of prayer, disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Minnesota bridge collapse could have been prevented or lessened?'”
C’mon. I like outside-the-box thinking as much as the next guy, but we need to know whether the candidates think prayer can stop bridge collapses? What kind of question is that? (For what it’s worth, Obama nailed the answer: “Most of the issues that we’re debating here today are ones that we have the power to change. We don’t have the power to prevent illness in all cases, but we do have the power to make sure that every child gets a regular checkup and isn’t going to the emergency room for treatable illnesses like asthma. We may not have the power to prevent a hurricane, but we do have the power to make sure that the levees are properly reinforced and we’ve got a sound emergency plan. And so, part of what I pray for is the strength and the wisdom to be able to act on those things that I can control. And that’s what I think has been lacking sometimes in our government.” Nice.)
There was also this odd question from Robert Malzarek (ph) of Montgomery, Alabama: “Unlike many others, I think that candidates may tell the truth, just not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For example, when advocating a position or action, candidates downplay or simply ignore the likely negative side effects. Can you name a major issue where you didn’t tell the whole truth and describe what you left out?” In other words, candidates, please talk about some lying you’ve done. (Dodd nailed the answer by changing the question: “Well, I’ll tell you one issue that I wish I had done more on, recently. And, I think, maybe one of the worst votes cast in the Congress, maybe in the last 20 years, was last fall, on the Military Commissions Act, in which we allowed the abandonment of habeas corpus, returning to torture, and abandoning the Geneva Convention. I thought about filibustering that bill, and I didn’t do it. I regret that deeply. I can’t think of a worse vote we cast, to walk away from the Constitution of the United States.”)
As for winners and losers, I think Obama won the day, Richardson had his best debate yet (arguably, his only good one), Dodd got screwed (again) with far too little airtime, and Gravel looked sillier than usual.
What about you? What’d you think?