Philadelphia debate: No more Mike Gravel, and no more of Clinton's laugh

Tonight's debate has been the most engaged of all the debates so far. The quick summary: Clinton attacked Bush; Obama, Edwards and Dodd attacked Clinton; Kucinich attacked everybody; and Biden delivered clever one-liners. The result: Obama and Edwards did what they needed to do, but Clinton (barely) managed to stay afloat... though she opened a door to the GOP on immigration.

Some highlights:

• Barack Obama and John Edwards were all over Hillary Clinton tonight. They needed to attack her strongly considering how much strength she has been building up, and they barely let her breath in the first half of the debate. Most of the attacks came around Clinton's vote in favor of the Iran resolution, and Edwards had the strongest line: "So.. to put pressure on the Bush Administration is ... to vote yes on a resolution that [looked as if it] was written by the neocons? Has anyone read this thing?" And Dodd added, "What you didn’t learn back in '02, you should have learned now."


• Unlike the Dartmouth debate, Barack Obama was much more forceful this time around. He took swipes at Clinton about the Iraq War and about Iran, but it is after Clinton refused to say that she would release the archives paper of her time as First Lady that he turned towards her to say, "This is an example of not turning the page." That was particularly out of character for Obama, as he volunteered an attack and seized on a passing opportunity to jump on Hillary.


• Edwards attacked Clinton more sharply -- perhaps at times doing a bit too much, and repeating his points too often, compared to Obama's harsh but overall more subtle criticisms. He repeatedly linked Clinton to the status-quo, and attacked her for double-talk: "I think the American people, given this historic moment in our country’s history, deserve a president of the United States that they know will tell them the truth, and won’t say one thing one time and something different at a different time."


• Hillary Clinton was clearly on the defensive throughout the first hour -- how could she not be when she was being attacked this consistently by Obama and Edwards, and also by Chris Dodd? Bill Richardson rescued her, calling upon more civility and less negative attacks, but that was not going to be enough. Hillary managed to not take any baits and answered everything and everyone the best she could. Her main strategy: Take the conversation back to George Bush. She mentioned the president many many more times than anyone else on stage, and she was clearly running against the current Administration and "its cronies." Her message: I am not afraid of Obama and Edwards, and I have more pressing issues to take care of.
  


• Hillary was successful in staying afloat, but we have to wonder whether the attack line on Iran will end up functioning. Obama has his own huge problems on Iran, but Hillary is not attacking him on that -- and ultimately Obama did not vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment. It has now been a month since the vote, and Hillary is getting increasingly bad press because of it. Will Obama and Edwards manage to make this stick as proof that Hillary does not have the right judgment to become President, and that she is too beholden to moderation and calculation and hackishness? They have not been able to for now, but if there is one thing they might sink Clinton on, it's this.


• And that brings us to the other main topic that will be remembered from tonight: The Dodd-Clinton back-and-forth on illegal immigration. Asked whether she stood by her statement in a NH newspaper that Spitzer's plan to give undocumented workers driving licenses "made sense," Clinton said it did... When pressed by Chris Dodd who appeared to be one of the only Democrats to oppose the idea, saying a driver's license is a privilege, not a right, Clinton refused to say whether she actually supported the idea -- just that she understood its need. A very weak difference... and Clinton was obviously trying to avoid answering the question. Edwards called her out on this, accusing her of giving two positions in the space of a minute. I personally am more sympathetic to Clinton on this one: No one else on stage defended Spitzer's plan, and Clinton took a huge political risk by saying good things about it. And though she strangely did not endorse it, I am at least glad she recognized that it is a good plan. For Edwards and Obama did not go there...


• Make no mistake about it... you can be sure that the GOP will attack Clinton on this for weeks to come (just look at how much Chris Matthews was obsessed by this in post-debate coverage): the GOP has little to run on in 2008, and immigration is one of the only topics they have left in which they believe the voters trust them and agree with their positions. And the electorate probably strongly disagrees with giving illegal immigrants driver's licenses... so Clinton will be attacked on this very heavily, and this will probably feature in the general election campaign the GOP will run against her if she becomes the nominee.


• And credits to Joe Biden for delivering the most memorable one-liners, as always. This time, it was about Rudy Giuliani: "There are only three things he makes in a sentence... A noun and a verb and 9/11." What is most surprising about this is how little Democratic candidates go after Giuliani... Obama went after Mitt Romney twice, but Democrats are mostly leaving Giuliani aside.


• Meanwhile, Mike Gravel is rightly protesting his exclusion from the debate. He is, after all, a former Senator, and he has served longer than John Edwards.
  

(In case you want to refresh your memory on the Dartmouth debate, here is the rundown).