Debate #20

Watched the Big 2-0 last night. All in all it seemed to me to be one of the better discussions as far as specific policy went. Both candidates turned in solid performances but I'd say the consensus is that Obama won this one. They each had a few rough patches but he never really looked like he was worried and for the most part he was as cool as the other side of the pillow.

The first 15 minutes was just back and forth about health care reform and I have to admit that I think both of their proposals are good ones but after that Clinton started to flail a bit more while Obama continued to appear confident and relaxed. She sucked the air out of the room with her Saturday Night Live reference about the media coddling Obama and then tried to out-McCain McCain by repeating the obvious distortion that Obama threatened to bomb Pakistan which he was able to parry and clarify expertly.

As for Obama, he started to stumble a bit when Tim Russert pressed him on the Farrakhan endorsement but his declaration to both "reject" and "denounce" Farrakhan and his pronouncements made it seem like Clinton was playing word games. He also seemed to hedge a bit on his promise to run a publicly funded campaign during the general election but I don't think that he or anybody else could foresee that he would have over one million donors during the primary. McCain has called him out on this but there seem to be some questions about his campaign financing as well.

This was basically the 15th round and Clinton needed a knock out punch she never even came close to landing. All Obama had to do was keep his gloves up and dance around her, landing small jabs and running out the clock. So with any luck this should be the final primary debate and we'll all wake up on March 5th with a definitive Democratic nominee. I'll refrain from commenting on what happens next until we're actually there except to say that I truly believe that we're watching something historic happen.