Democratic candidates' debate, Drexel University
Steve Thomma on McClatchyDC.com.
Obama says he's taking the girls Trick-or-Treating tomorrow night, and he'll be wearing a Mitt Romney mask. "It has two faces, it goes both directions."
Joe Biden loves kids! Says he'd stop imports from China until the lead paint thing is handled.
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Edwards: No decriminalization of pot.
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Tim Russert, to Kucinich: Did you see a UFO?
Kucinich: Yes. Well, it was an unidentified flying object.
Also jokes that he's moving the campaign headquarters to Roswell. He's a card, that one.
Wait, it gets better. Russert just asked Obama whether he believes in life on other planets.
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Time for Obama to start chewing on his tie. It was bad enough to be asked a sophisticated question about what the president should be doing about shitty airline service and have to answer it in 30 seconds. Then he gave a rambling answer that kind of made him sound like he was about to launch into a standup routine (Airlines? Are they ever on time? Who are these people?), then when Brian Williams interrupts him, he blushes and says, "Oh, I forgot we were in a lightning round.
Can you actually be elected president by promising on-time flights?
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10:45 p.m.: And now it's the time of night where, were I on deadline for a newspaper story, I'd be freaking out. Boy, I don't miss that.
OK, maybe a little bit.
Actually I like this better -- Confetti Betty doesn't live and die by feeding the daily beast. It's nice to be able to let things ripen and not have to write "game stories."
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Hey, they're talking about education -- in the lightning round, with 30-second limits. Sigh. Enough time for them all to endorse longer school years and a longer school day, universal pre-K, etc.
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10:30 p.m.: I feel like we're watching Obama's candidacy wither on the vine right before our eyes. His answers are getting lighter and lighter, that nice suit he's wearing seems emptier and emptier by the minute. He's seeming less like a rock star and more like a one-hit wonder. And he just let the phrase "I don't know all the details" escape his lips -- inexcusable, even at this early point in the campaign and especially in a major debate.
A reporter sitting near me leans over, in a stage whisper: "Obama's dyyyying."
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Question for Edwards, as to whether there should be a "bottomless well" of federal dollars to help people rebuild their homes in risk-prone areas, or if there should be limits. He won't come out and call for a limit, instead talking about being smart and environmentally sensitive, all of which sounds good until your house has burned down or flooded for the fourth or fifth time.
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In the home stretch now, Richardson's urging a 50 mpg fuel standard, Dodd's taxing carbon, Kucinich is taking notes and thinking about the tongue stud. Kidding. Or maybe not.
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Biden's mouth is going, and he's got the line of the night so far:
On Rudy Giuliani: "There's only three things he mentions in a sentence, a noun, a verb and 9/11." BURN!
Says Giuliani is the only one of the 2008 presidential field who's truly lacking in qualifications.
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Richardson's decrying "this holier-than-thou attitude toward Senator Clinton," reminds everyone that we're far more likely to elect a governor than a member of Congress. "I trust Senator Clinton, but I disagree with her on the majority of issues." Right.
Still, Dodd isn't as willing to let go of the "issue" of Hillary's electability: Whether it's fair or not, he says, she still polarizes. "I'm not saying anything that people don't know already."
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9:36 p.m.: Unfulfillable Promise Alert!
Edwards says he'd end combat missions in Iraq within the first year of his presidency.
If anyone was looking for this to be the night Obama grew some balls, but no such luck. It's Edwards who's going there. First he calls Hillary a neocon (damn, that's a fight in my neighborhood!), then he makes a crack about her campaign's rhetoric -- and, he reasons, her positions -- shifting from "primary mode" to general election mode:
"We need to be in tell the truth mode, all the time. we should not be saying something in the general election [different] than we're saying in the primary."
The question is whether the candidates would pledge that Iran wouldn't get nuclear weapons while they're president. Hillary: "I am pledging, I will do everything I can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb."
Only Richardson takes the bait, pledging to keep Iran from getting nukes while he's president. It's the kind of promise only made by someone who knows he's never actually going to be president.
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There was a while there where Obama sounded like he was actually saying substantive things, but I fear that time has passed. He seems a bit like a guy who's fighting out of his weight class, a welterweight trying to bulk up to fight as a heavyweight.
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Sen. Dodd on the vote classifying the Kyl-Lieberman amendment : "This issue is going to come back to haunt us." He and Biden predict that the votes will ultimately be used by Bush again as proof of support for a war against Iran.
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Well, so much for the Clinton's rivals coming out swinging against her -- there was no need. The first question, to Barack Obama, was a request for him to expand on his remarks that she's been voting like a Republican. The message is clear that it wasn't just the GOP's most recent debate that would be All About Hillary.
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It's odd, actually, that Hillary Clinton is shorter than all of her male rivals -- OK, except Kucinich, but we'll call that even because we like the dude. So why do they seem like the Six Dwarves standing next to her?
Pre-Game:
Let's see, we've made it past the tightly-controlled "Campaign Visibility Area," where ACT UP protesters were waiting patiently for a police contingent to lead their protest march. Power to the um, people.
Installed in the press room, sitting next to Steve Thomma, who's doing the "real" debate coverage here. Glad to know there's a newsman handy in case something newsworthy happens, you know?
Howard Dean on the difference between the Democratic candidates and the GOP field: The Democrats "look like the rest of America," with a woman, a black man and a Latino. The Republicans, he says, "look like the 1950s and when they open their mouths they sound like the 1850s." ZING!
