. . . until the New Hampshire primary.
With the Demo Debate last night, the Silly Season is now underway in earnest. And the winner is Chris Dodd. Let me explain.
Clinton made a good showing, and since she is the frontrunner and committed no gaffes, she can count the evening as a success. She gave the best answer by far to a question about what the President should do if two U.S. cities were nuked by terrorists; she was immediate and convincing in her assertion that we would, of course, respond militarily against any state that was involved or that harbored the terrorists. The other candidates talked about the need to be sure who was behind the bombings and about the need for disaster recovery efforts that were far better than those demonstrated after Hurricane Katrina, but Clinton was the only one who understood that the question was really about whether the President would hesitate under those circumstances to take military action, and she was excellent on this point.
Obama once again was disappointing when called to speak extemporaneously. He still seems faintly canned and a little unsure when he doesn't have a script. He ducked the nasty question, the one about the Chicago slumlord who donated to his campaign by giving a rambling answer about ethics and campaign finance reform. No, there were no obvious mistakes, but nothing that showcased his charisma, his eloquence or his smarts.
Edwards came off well, and four of the seven people gathered 'round the TV in my basement thought he won the evening. He was stumped--as most people would have been--about identifying his "moral leader." This was obviously an invitation to bring religion into the debate; George W. would no doubt have named Jesus (but the Who Would Jesus Bomb? T-shirts neatly show his hypocrisy in this regard). He wound up, after a long pause, by naming "my lord" and "my wife," which was probably the best one could do under the circumstances. He handled the nasty question about the $400 haircut very well.
Richardson was a disaster and a major disappointment to me. He looked doughy and sweaty; he seemed nervous and uncertain. He leaned forward with a puzzled expression on his face as questions were being asked (is he hard of hearing? were the sound monitors not working?). His response to the nasty question about his not calling for Alberto Gonzales' resignation sooner because Gonzales is Hispanic was to say yeah, I said that, which was hardly reassuring. His answers about foreign affairs emphasized the process of diplomacy, which is understandable because he is by all accounts a highly skilled negotiator--but he didn't make much of an impression as to what the end result of such diplomacy ought to be. He habitually ran out of time when giving his answers, which tended to ramble.
Biden was competant, but offered no compelling reasons to vote for him. It seemed to me that he got less time so speak than any of the other candidates. He could have had the best response of the night--a one-word "yes" to the question of whether he could assure the public that he would watch his words and not natter on--but his delivery looked too rehearsed; I could almost see a consultant's hand up his back when he said this.
Gravel was just what this bunch needed: an eccentric, a quasi-radical, a man unafraid to speak uncomfortable truths and challenge the other candidates on their pat and conventional positions. Every single life lost in Vietnam was wasted, he thundered--and with respect to Iraq, the only thing worse than the wasted lives of the soldiers who died there was more wasted lives. He pointed out that the Democrats had the power to stop the war in Iraq if they really wanted to. At times, he was just loopy, as when he suggested making keeping troops in Iraq a felony. Still, even in his loopier moments he demonstrated the kind of attitude that is so discouragingly absent in the mainstream candidates: the willingness to oppose this stupid war by any means necessary.
My wife commented after the debate that Gravel made Kucinich look electable. The MSNBC talking heads must have heard her, because they later offered variations on the same thought. I thought he lost points when he lapsed into legispeak about HR number such-and-such a couple of times. However, even when he was making points about topics he was passionate about, he did so with a smile, thus avoiding angry-little-man syndrome. He definitely came out of the debate better than when he went in.
But the evening clearly belonged to Chris Dodd, and no one was more surprised than I. He seemed polished and wise. He is a great extemporaneous speaker--there were no hesitations, no garbled syntax, no uncertainty in his delivery. He looks the part of a President. More important than his appearance, though, was what he said. He smoothly handled an e-mail question about why welfare recipients shouldn't be drug tested; his answer neatly intertwined compassion and good policy. His position on Iraq is clear: all out in less than a year, no ifs, ands or buts. He neatly turned a question about whether he was too Washington into a riff on public service, and seamless put the teachers in his family into the same category as the statesmen. He was the only candidate to point out that the war in Iraq had distracted us from the pursuit of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He was unambiguously in favor of civil unions.
I really didn't expect this, and at this early stage I am still undecided. But if you measure success in last night's debate in terms of who did Better or Worse than Expected, there is no doubt that Chris Dodd walked away with it and gave people (like me) who might have overlooked him some compelling reasons to pay closer attention to his candidacy.
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