The Dartmouth debate: Can Edwards become the un-Clinton?

The Democratic candidates met in Dartmouth today for their MSNBC debate, the first in nearly a month. The forum was largely underwhelming because of the poor way in which Tim Russert conducted the debate. No particular moment stood out, but there were many interesting dynamics to be noticed.

• Clinton was on the defensive throughout the night. She had never been attacked to this extent, and it was evident that some of her rivals are frustrated that Clinton still looks like the overwhelming favorite. She handled it as well as she could, never looking destabilized though she did feel compelled to responding to attacks -- an unmistakable and rare sign that she felt threatened.


• The second significant Clinton story tonight is how unafraid she is of moving to the center. She defended her vote to make the Iran Guard a terrorist organization. She refused to give precise answers on issues like nuclear energy. Clinton is thinking ahead to the general election and is unwilling to move anymore to the Left than she has to. This, more than anything else, betrays how huge a favorite Clinton is to win the nomination.


• Most of the attacks were waged by John Edwards. Edwards used his first response to attack Clinton for not being committed to ending the war. Clinton immediately jumped in to respond, setting a Clinton-Edwards showdown within the first 10 minutes. This is really the dream of the Edwards campaign, who needs to show that this race is not just about the Clinton-Obama horse race (Clinton seemed eager to engage with Edwards which could indicate that she also does not want to be locked in a dangerous one-on-one contest with Obama). Edwards also had a very nice moment when he explained Clinton and him had drawn different lessons from their 2003 vote approving the Iraq War. In a sharp and eloquent argument, he used her Iran vote from today to show the contrast between Clinton and himself: "What I learned in my vote on Iraq was you cannot give this president the authority and you can't even give him the first step in that authority because he cannot be trusted."


• The other candidates joined in. Mike Gravel blasted Clinton for her Iran vote. "Shame on you Hillary," he exclaimed, putting Clinton's hawkishness on full display in the opening moments of the debate. Biden followed up later explaining Clinton is too divisive to lead effectively, though it is "not her fault" -- a slight refinement to Obama's argument. Biden then went on a strange offensive, saying that all the "old stuff" would come back if Hillary got to the White House, before pausing and adding that he was only referring to "the policies... the policies..." We got it Biden, you were not talking about the sex scandals.


• Barack Obama, by contrast, was absent. His campaign had said before the debate that their candidate had a cold, and Obama's performance confirmed that he probably did. He did not distinguish himself and let Edwards portray himself as the main alternative to Clinton. And Obama could not use Clinton's main vulnerability (her Iran vote) since he had failed to participate in today's Senate vote (Note: This is the second potentially embarrassing vote Obama is missing in two weeks. Last week, he skipped the vote condemning MoveOn.org for its Petreaus ad).


• One good moment for Obama came in the health care discussion, where he went after Clinton in much harsher terms than usual -- and highlighting a key difference between their campaigns. Referring to her 1993 effort to pass health care, he said "Part of the reason it was lonely, Hillary, is because you closed the door." His campaign immediately released research material supporting his claim. This is actually a good tactic for Obama, because it deflects one of Clinton's main arguments about 1993 ("I failed to pass health care because Democrats didn't back me up"), and because it focuses on process and transparency (Obama's strong point).


• Mike Gravel offered the most memorable lines of the night, including his dramatic attack on Clinton at the beginning of the debate. What is truly amazing about Gravel is how authentic he sounds in his answers: He is in this race to tell what is on his mind without worrying about further political calculations. Particularly forceful was his plea for Democrats to keep forcing republicans to vote against cloture on Iraq bill.


• Joe Biden had a good night. Today's Senate vote overwhelmingly in favor of his plan for a federal Iraq gave him an ideal issue to bring out repeatedly. Biden slipped in a reference to the "Biden plan" in seemingly every answer he gave for the first hour, emphasizing that he managed to get 26 Republican votes on an Iraq bill that opposed Administration policy. He also shined in his answer to the torture question (see below). Chris Dodd also sounded forceful. Coming out of a great month in which he emerged as a leading candidate on issues relating to Iraq and drew praise from activists for his position on Cuba (Kos even announced he had voted for Dodd in his latest straw poll), Dodd spoke with a characteristic energy. Am I the only one to think that if there was only one of either Biden and Dodd they might actually get somewhere, but that together they simply neutralize each other?


• One question worth looking at more closely is the one asked on torture. The Polico's Ben Smith rightly devotes to it his first full article on tonight's debate. Obama, who answered the question first, offered a stunningly weak answer. He said that torture was off the table as a matter of policy... but then asserted that the president would have to make the call when individual cases arose! Obama did not mention anything about torture being inefficient and the likelihood of obtaining bad information. Biden then offered a great answer ruling out any possibility in which he would be moved to order torture. He clearly emphasized that torture does not work. Clinton then struck a balance between Biden and Obama: She also said that torture does not work and said she would not use it, but she did add that ambiguous "as policy." She did not, however, say anything about a shady hypothetical case in which she might make a different call and rejected the 24 scenario of a ticking bomb (The Politico points out that Clinton did not use to be so pure on the torture issue. Overall, this was not Obama's greatest moment.


• Tim Russert was truly an awful host. He repeatedly asked the same questions when it was clear the candidate was not going to answer, and he pitched softballs disguised as tough questions in Clinton and Obama's direction. To Clinton, he asked how he responded to criticism of a 28-year Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton succession. Clinton had been praised last month for her witty answer to the exact same question at the CNN You Tube debate. And Russert's hard-hitting question to Obama was a question about his experience, allowing Obama to give one of his best-rehearsed answers. Russert also left only little time for discussion on the issue of health-care, with only a few minutes devoted to that most crucial of issues and no question about anything substantive. And to finish a disastrous performance on an even lower note, he set up a very cheap and sly trap against Clinton by making her comment and disagree with something Bill Clinton had said about torture without saying who the quote was from, and then revealing in evident glee that the quote was taken from "William... Jefferson... Clinton." (Clinton did seem at a loss for a second, but then nicely recovered with one of her best moments tonight, responding, "Well he’s not standing here right now.")


• And there was an incredible number of stupid questions: "Red Sox or Yankee?" and "Your favorite Bible verse..." Not to mention that the question on gay rights was on the strange topic of whether the candidates would find it appropriate for their kids to read a story about a same-sex couple... There are certainly more interesting gay rights issues to address in a Democratic debate.