Noam Scheiber: The Vegas Debate

[babylonsister]

And check out the comments at the end of this...

The Vegas Debate

Earlier this week I had a conversation about Barack Obama with a rival campaign strategist. This summer, the strategist told me, Obama looked downright plaintive--like a man second-guessing his decision to run for president. No longer, said the strategist. In recent weeks, both the candidate and campaign have been acting like a team that expects to win.

I think we saw this second Obama on display tonight. He was focused, energized, tough, charismatic--pretty much everything the press had accused him of not being in previous debates. And yet the candidate who probably helped herself the most was Hillary Clinton.

Start with Obama, who, among other things, gave as good as he got in exchanges with Hillary over health care and Social Security. Obama was also as fluent as I've ever seen him on policy--his rationale for a trade deal with Peru stood out--and got off probably the best few quips of the night on Iraq ("{T}he notion that somehow because we've gone from horrific violence to just intolerable levels of violence ... that justifies George Bush's strategy is absolutely wrong.") and immigration ("{T}hey're not coming here to go to the In-N-Out Burger. ... They're here to work."). Like Hillary and Edwards before him, Obama did stumble somewhat over illegal immigrant driver's licenses, something Hillary's spinners gleefully highlighted after the debate. But, given that the question sheds zero light on what a candidate would do as president--it's a state-level issue; no president would introduce legislation granting the licenses, and no Democratic president would introduce legislation preventing states from granting them--it's a sin I'm willing to forgive.

Perhaps more important than these substantive questions was Obama's demeanor. He can sometimes sound like his mind is elsewhere in these formats--his responses are filled with "um"'s and "uh"'s and he avoids direct eye contact. Tonight he suppressed those tics and spoke with some of the passion you hear in his well-received speeches. He deftly used CNN's Wolf Blitzer as a foil after Blitzer assumed that a certain technology wouldn't improve any time soon. "Don't keep on assuming that we can't do something," Obama said. "This is about the third time where you said, 'assuming we can't do it.' ... I'm running for president because I think we can do it." The exchange was a little cheap--you could respond that way pretty much any time someone asks a question about present circumstances. But it somehow managed to distill the promise of Obama into a single, irresistible moment.

For her part, Hillary was back to her usual steady self after the brief vacation from history that was her previous performance. She made no mistakes, stuck up for herself when she had to, showed enough humanity to prove she's a member of the species. I think her line about being "comfortable in the kitchen"--that is, the place where all that heat is, which some people can't stand--is too clever by half. But she delivers it playfully enough that it somehow works.

more...

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2007/11/16/the-vegas-debate.aspx

[AtomicKitten]

1. Obama is doing an excellent job punctuating the differences.

He did exactly what he needed to do.

I agree debates aren't his forte, but he's certainly improving. When his sharp intellect is invoked and he's on-point, there is no one more eloquent.

Gobama.

K&R

[babylonsister]

3. I would love to see a one-on-one 'conversation' between these

candidates, with enough time to express themselves instead of soundbites they're allowed in a debate. You know, like a 'real' debate. I bet he'd do well.

[AtomicKitten]

4. A debate without the commentator editorializing and playing "gotcha"

and actual discussion of issues would be most informative.

The Media Heathers apparently can't resist inserting themselves into the debate. Ugh.

[BeyondGeography]

2. "showed enough humanity to prove she's a member of the species"

Funny.