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Little Clashes in New HampshireThe Democrats spar in their second debate

By John Dickerson
Posted Monday, June 4, 2007, at 1:50 AM ET

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Democratic presidential hopefuls. Click image to expand.

The second Democratic presidential debate was held at the end of the hockey rink at St. Anselm college in Goffstown, N.H. The ice had been removed for the summer, but the boards surrounding the rink remained, making it an appropriate venue for the first serious bout of cross-checking among the presidential primary contenders. The rivals questioned one another's judgment and honesty on the Iraq war and the fight against terrorism. No one lost any teeth, but at least the major candidates weren't so awfully nice to one another the way they had been in their first debate five weeks ago.

The Democrats have now held two debates and for a second time Hurricane Katrina was uttered only in passing. The catastrophe and the issues of poverty and government competency it raised once animated discussions among Democrats, but not tonight. Nor was there discussion of other issues Democrats have talked about in the past like pensions, wages, and education. The candidates debated health care at some length, but Iraq and the war on terror dominated much of the evening.

Some observations about the individual candidates:

Top of the Hill: In the second Republican debate Rudy Giuliani deflected a question about his pro-choice position on abortion by bringing up Hillary Clinton. He argued Republicans should focus on her as the real threat, not get consumed by their intraparty fight. Tonight, Hillary returned the favor. During a discussion about her vote to authorize the Iraq war, the senator tried to pivot. "The differences among us are minor," she said. "The differences between us and the Republicans are major. And I don't want anybody in America to be confused." She repeatedly asserted that George Bush and no one else was to blame for Iraq. (Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel disagreed; they said Democrats owned the war, too).

Clinton, like Giuliani, wasn't just switching the subject but trying to behave like the leader of the party as if the general election were already under way. Good thing for her she was able to pull it off. She made almost no mistakes and looked in command. She rebutted John Edwards' claim that the "war on terror" is just a bumper sticker, making a forceful case for why jihadists must be confronted. She didn't exactly risk anything, but then she doesn't have to. She was the front-runner coming in, and she still is.

Obama and Edwards fought but Hillary stayed above the fray. Afterward her aides said this was proof of her presidential temperament. Those lesser candidates had to squabble because they were scraping for second place—the one slot to be the Hillary alternative. If you look at the national polls you might buy that this is the dynamic of the race. The state polls show Clinton in a weaker position, though.

The one slip Hillary's opponents will likely exploit, and which she'll perhaps have to spend some time clarifying, is her assertion that since 9/11 "we are safer than we were, [though] not yet safe enough." Most Democrats would argue that the Iraq war has made America less safe no matter what improvements have made domestically to deter future hijackings or plots to blow up JFK. When I asked two of Clinton's aides afterward if she had misspoken or meant something else, they did not modify her remarks. Both the Obama and Edwards campaigns sought to take advantage of this. "Not only are we not safer," said former Rep. David Bonior, John Edwards' campaign manager. "We have more terrorists and fewer allies."

Barack is back: Barack Obama had a strong night, especially compared to his lackluster first debate performance. When John Edwards challenged Obama's leadership abilities by charging that Obama only meekly opposed the recent Iraq funding legislation, Obama threw an elbow. "The fact is, is that I opposed this war from the start," he said looking coolly at Edwards, who voted to authorize the war. "So, you're about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue." The senator then threw another elbow, suggesting that Edwards shouldn't politicize the war issue. It was such a deft performance you almost didn't notice that Obama was himself politicizing the issue, albeit in his own high-minded way.

Later, Obama held his own in another exchange with Edwards over health-care policy. In time, the fact-checkers may find flaws in his arguments, but since Obama has been criticized—by Edwards among others—for lacking substance, his forceful case for his own plan helped to rebut the weightlessness charge.

And he didn't stop there. Obama was telling lots of people what to do. He took on CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer, who asked the candidates to raise their hands to signify whether they thought English should be the official language in America. "This is the kind of question that is designed precisely to divide us," said Obama, interrupting the flow of the debate. In the first debate, he seemed tentative when asked how he would respond to a hypothetical terrorist attack. Not tonight. He was clear that he'd assassinate Osama Bin Laden if given the chance, even if it meant killing innocent civilians.

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John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
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Remarks from the Fray:

What kind of debate review is this? There were eight people on the platform, including at least seven serious candidates. If you don't report on some of them [the message is that] they are not serious. Poll numbers follow the press coverage; people don't take seriously the ones that aren't reported on.

This column is no exception. What did Chris Dodd have to say? Bill Richardson is arguably the best qualified of the candidates to be President, having served in Congress, as Governor of a very interesting state, and as UN Ambassador among other things. He's the only one running for President who has ever been nominated for a Nobel prize! How dare you treat him as an unperson! And then there's Kucinich, the invisible man. The last time he ran for president he built a campaign organization in 50 states and collected more individual donations than anyone but Dean, and at the end of the campaign many Americans still didn't know his name. Now it's happening again! What does he have to do to get heard, buy a TV network?

Just shame on you for playing that "let's narrow the field" game! In a world where the media has narrowed to a few outlets with a few owners, you have a moral obligation to be more than a surreptitious mouthpeice. To play favorites and tilt the field is to undermine what's left of our democracy!

--Chrisahorton

(To reply, click here.)

I was wondering if anyone else thought so, but I thought CNN has presented the worst debate so far. Here is why I did not like CNN's presentation:

Wolf Blitzer, who usually does all right with news, stumbled and stammered quite often -- especially when trying to remember what politician's title was what. He also did a very bad job of controlling the flow of the debate. […]

Once the Town Hall format began, the people in the audience asked pre-screened questions directed at no particular candidate. This left it up to Wolf to direct to whom the question went, and the answers were usually bland. After one candidate would vaguely answer the question, Blitzer would ask a not-quite-on-topic hypothetical question ("Would you assassinate Osama bin Laden"?). Then another candidate would try, after a few minutes, to get back to the question asked by the audience member […]

The "fringe" candidates were literally on the fringe of the stage, while the three frontrunners were right cozily together. After so many people made a big deal about the Republicans trying to exclude Ron Paul from future debates, the Democrats putting Gravel and Kucinich on the edges and then Blitzer not asking them many questions is almost as bad. Are the Democrats also scared of these fringe candidates like the Republicans are of Paul?

Instead of having the candidates in a semi-circle or at least a moderately curved line, they were put in an almost-straight line where they had to either lean over the podium or out past their chair to see the other candidates. Poorly laid-out by CNN.

--Histerical

(To reply, click here.)

(6/5)

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