Yesterday, Des Moines hosted the fifth of six official DNC presidential candidate debates. While it lacked some of the fireworks seen in other Dem debates, there were some substantive moments.
Fortunately, the debate benefited from Joe Lieberman’s absence. It was something of a messy situation for the Connecticut senator — first he said he didn’t want to participate, then he said he couldn’t, then he said he would appear so long as it was via satellite. Ultimately, the Iowa Dem Party kept Lieberman out. It was for the best; it’s bad enough having eight candidates debating.
Here are my ratings for each of the candidates in this debate:
Wesley Clark — A
Yesterday’s debate was easily Clark’s best debate performance yet. He’s clearly getting better at this with each passing event. He started a little slow, with adequate but short answers about Medicare and gay marriage, but hit his stride as the event went on, particularly in discussing foreign policy. Clark got to use his “I’m not attacking the president because he’s attacking terrorists; I’m attacking him because he isn’t attacking terrorists” line, which generated big applause. He also appeared above the fray, criticizing Bush instead of his Dem rivals, and for the first time, had a strong, memorized closing statement. (In the post-debate analysis on MSNBC, the pundits were unanimous that Clark had the best night of the bunch.)
John Edwards — A-
Though appearing via satellite from Capitol Hill, Edwards did a nice job stepping in with a positive message. While Dean and Gephardt bickered, Edwards said, “[Dems] have to offer a positive, optimistic, uplifting vision for this country. The American people are hungry for it. They are looking for it. They’re tired of our complaints about each other. They want to know what we are going to do for their lives. And I, for one, I intend to offer them that positive vision.” Solid message, good messenger. I give Edwards bonus points for only mentioning once that his father worked in a mill (he usually beats us over the head with that one).
John Kerry — B+
Like Edwards, Kerry was in DC, but he made his presence felt. In particular, he hammered Dean effectively on Medicare, asking Dean if he favored cutting the rate of growth for the program. Dean wouldn’t answer, so Kerry continued to go after him. It was walking the line between inquiring and badgering, but the fact that Dean kept evading the question made Kerry look better. Overall, Kerry seemed relaxed. I think his new staffers are helping.
Howard Dean — Incomplete
In some ways, Dean excelled yesterday. He was under constant criticism from Gephardt and Kerry (and to a lesser extent, Kucinich), but he kept his cool. Even when Brokaw tried to set up him to attack his rivals, Dean wisely never took the bait. “Dick’s a good person,” Dean said at one point. “I like Dick Gephardt and I worked for him in ’88.” Smart. Dean is slowly shifting away from his red-in-the-face angry persona and working on developing a presidential persona. That said, Dean was subject to a series of new criticisms, some of which I hadn’t heard before, including his endorsement of the Biden-Lugar Iraq war resolution, his deep cuts in social programs in Vermont, and his Vietnam deferment. Dean didn’t respond well to some of these criticisms and I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more about them in the coming months. Dean did well in Des Moines, but he may have suffered a few hits that linger.
Dick Gephardt — B
Gephardt clearly was taking his best shots at Dean, but I think he did a nice job not being overly harsh about it. Better yet, he didn’t rely on old attacks from the last few months (Gephardt didn’t talk about Dean’s record of hostility for Medicare, for example), using almost entirely new material last night. Gephardt ought to give a raise to the researcher who found Dean’s support for the Biden-Lugar Iraq war resolution — not only was it a great catch, but it’s also likely to undercut Dean’s supposed consistency on Iraq. Also, Gephardt demonstrated that he’s uniquely good at dodging questions he doesn’t want to answer. When Brokaw asked if he agreed with Ted Kennedy’s description of the war as a “fraud,” Gephardt appeared to answer the question but didn’t. He did the same thing when asked if he considered Ariel Sharon “a man of peace.” I think Dick learned a few things about debating during his decades in the House.
Kucinich, Braun, and Sharpton — collective B-
Sharpton wasn’t as funny as he usually is, Braun didn’t use the Mayflower line that I like, and if Kucinich says “get the U.N. in and the U.S. out” one more time, my head might explode.