Live-Blogging During Tonight's Democratic Debate

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Live-Blogging During Tonight's Democratic Debate

October 30, 2007 5:50 PM

11:05 pm ET: Rick Klein wrapping it up -- Hillary Clinton gave a truly bad answer at the end, on illegal immigration, one that feeds the argument Obama and Edwards were making all night. Did Obama clear the bar he set for himself? Probably yes, but not with much room to spare. Edwards still seems better, though, at finding compelling ways to set himself apart. And other surprises -- how about Joe Biden taking on Rudy Giuliani? Is he the new George W. Bush, in terms of punching-bag status?

That's it for blogging tonight. Check out The Note tomorrow and ABCNews.com tonight for a more full recap...

11:04 pm ET: From ABC's David Wright: Okay I take it back about the lightning round. UFO's, life on mars, driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, legalizing pot, and christmas toys from china. Oddball questions that have, in the end, sparked some interesting responses.

11:03 pm ET: We're now talking about Halloween costumes. End this. Now.

10:59 pm ET: This talk of extra-terrestrials is argument enough to making these debates shorter. But Obama's answer about taking care of life on Earth, that's a good response to a weird question.

10:58 pm ET: Russert: "Did you see a UFO?" Kucinich: "I did." You can't make this stuff up.

10:58 pm ET: From ABC's Jake Tapper: Clinton parsing on the difference between "I think it makes a lot of sense" and "I agree with it" on Gov. Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses for illegal immigrants -- confusing. And, whoa, Edwards just went in for the kill. Whoa - so did Obama.... A new issue just was born.

10:56 pm ET: It's rare that a highlight comes this late in a debate, but Edwards picks up on that inconsistency on immigration: "Sen. Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes." Obama: "I was confused on Sen. Clinton's answer." And Obama calls the Spitzer plan "the right idea."

10:54 pm ET: Sen. Clinton is actually engaged in a good debate with Sen. Dodd over illegal immigration -- harmed by the fact that her stance is less than firm. It's still not clear whether she supports the initiative of her own governor.

10:50 pm ET: ABC's David Wright: Whoever came up with the "lightning round" concept should be fired. It seems we are in for 10 minutes of boilerplate in 30 second chunks.

10:35 pm ET: The last few minutes remind me of why debates should end at 90 minutes. Less energy on the stage, and fewer interesting things to be said.

10:29 pm ET: Clinton really doesn't want any part of Charlie Rangel's tax plan. She doesn't know the details -- and here's guessing she doesn't want to know them.

10:28 pm ET: The Clinton campaign provides documentation for saying that the healthcare records are available: "The only documents certain to be available at the opening of Clinton's library are 500,000 pages collected by the health care task force headed by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The task force's proposal for a universal health care system included closed-door meetings and led to one of Clinton's early first-term defeats. The closed meetings led to a federal court ruling that opened the documents nine years ago." [AP, 9/17/04 <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132789,00.html> ]

Newsweek, however, reported last week that "some key papers from her health-care task force" remain hidden from public view.

10:18 pm ET: From ABC's Jake Tapper: I think Obama's having a pretty good night. And though clearly Clinton's folks seem to have told her not to engage directly with Obama or Edwards - probably because they think it would only elevate them - I don't think that has worked. She's projecting "frontrunner" but I'm not sure it's projecting "frontrunner you should be content with." And boy -- LIHEAP? "Sense of the Senate"? Whoda thunk on a stage with Biden and Dodd that Hillary would be the one with Senate-it-is?!!

10:08 pm ET: Where was that Obama answer going? I'm sort of surprised he didn't have something more concise to say on Social Security, since he's identified it as a Clinton inconsistency.

10:06 pm ET: From ABC's Jake Tapper: All the Republicans are running against Clinton. All the Democrats are running against Bush . . . except for Biden, who is focusing on Rudy Giuliani. Interesting.

10:03 pm ET: Don't double talk around Tim Russert! Clinton is still maintaining that she has a real position on Social Security. "Fiscal responsibility" is nice if you want to try to balance the budget, but that does not -- and will not ever -- fix Social Security.

10:02 pm ET: Biden just had a great moment. He has lots of them. Maybe it won't ever matter, but maybe they add up.

10:01 pm ET: Biden knows Democrats love attacks on Republicans, and not just Bush, but Rudy Giuliani. Laugh line of the night: "There's only three things he makes in a sentence: A noun and a verb and 9/11. . . . He is genuinely not qualified to be president."

9:54 pm ET: Richarson is the one defending Clinton: "Pretty close to personal attacks." Now he's the one trying to rise above -- what's his play here? Then he attacks Clinton's electability, by pointing out that senators are rarely elected president. And really, governor, you don't agree with Sen. Clinton about a "majority" of the issues?

9:52 pm ET: Obama's answer about his own experience isn't bad, but why wouldn't he hit that one out of the park? The blizzard of bills he worked on -- he sounds like, God forbid, a senator.

9:50 pm ET: Another good Edwards line: "If people want the status quo, than they want Sen. Clinton."

9:48 pm ET: From ABC's David Chalian: Obama's cleanest swipe of the campaign on Clinton library records. . . Not turning the page -- you can't claim this as your experience and then be secretive about it. Republicans obsessed with HRC is a fight they are comfortable having."

9:46 pm ET: "All of the [healthcare] records, so far as I know . . . are already available." -- Clinton. That's just not true, and Obama calls her on it: "This is an example of not turning the page." "Part of what we have to do is invite the American people back in our government again." And here comes another fresh attack: "What we don't need is another eight years of bickering." SEE ENTRY AT 10:28 PM FOR UPDATE

9:44 pm ET: Clinton: "In a perverse way, I think the Republicans and their constant obsession with me obviously means they think I'm communicating effectively." Good answer, odd word choice.

9:37 pm ET: Edwards seems to be drawing sharp distinctions tonight as well. But look at Clinton's face -- it DOES NOT MOVE while he goes on the attack, even when it's not fair. Clinton's response: "I stand for ending the war in Iraq, bringing the troops home. But also know that it's going to get complicated, and it's going to take time."

9:35 pm ET: Now it's about "credibility" for Obama. He is taking Clinton on from so many different directions tonight, I've lost count.

9:33 pm ET: Clinton is strong, concise, and sharp tonight. She is finding ways to contrast herself with the Bush administration even while defending herself. That's not easy, particularly given the advanced publicity surrounding all the aggressiveness we're expecting.

9:30 pm ET: Not to harp on Richardson for this, but does he seem like he's playing outside his weight class when the discussion turns to foreign policy? Sort of surprising for a guy with that much experience in the realm.

9:28 pm ET: Give Biden bonus points for a deep answer as well on foreign policy. So far, this is some serious substance -- a wonk's dream.

9:25 pm ET: "You asked me if I would pledge, and I have pledged." -- Clinton, sounding, shall we say, Clintonian. Then Obama gets a bit deeper: "We have been governed by fear these past six years." THERE is the link to his campaign message that was missing earlier this evening. It does seem like the Obama camp has plotted this out a good bit this evening.

9:23 pm ET: Kucinich has a good line: "We have a number of enablers who happen to be Democrats." Then he brings up impeachment. Filling the Gravel role well.

9:22 pm ET: Where is Bill Richardson going in this answer? He just emptied the kitchen sink on Iran -- not the clear message he wanted in his first question.

9:20 pm ET: Edwards' line about how this "sounds familiar" is an effective way into the debate over Iran. "It literally gave Bush and Cheney exactly what they wanted." "Literally the language of the neocons." "How in the world is that . . . Democrats standing up to this president?"

9:18 pm ET: This actually is a real difference in foreign policy, though you have to wade through some deep spin to get there. The shorthand is Clinton as tougher than Obama, but Obama's more nuanced view does seem like the cleaner break from Bush.

9:16 pm ET: Obama: "I don't think we should be talking about attacking Iran at this point." Notice that Obama is talking about "the kinds" of foreign policy -- not just Bush foreign policy. In his formulation, Bush foreign policy IS Clinton foreign policy.

9:13 pm ET: Another thought on Obama -- he seemed to be shifting his message from "judgment" to "flip-flops." It may be a tough case to make against someone as well-known as Hillary Clinton, but it's definitely a different tack.

9:12 pm ET: So far, Sen. Clinton is acting as if she is alone on the stage. Clearly a strategy of non-engagement.

9:07 pm ET: Edwards is just as aggressive as Obama, but we're not hearing new language from him yet. Yet if tonight is going to be a pile-on on Clinton, who is going to come out on top? Edwards says "double talk," Clinton replies, essentially, c'mon, you know me. "I have a long record of standing up and fighting," she said. "On specific issues, I have very specific plans." (Though her "very specific plan" on Social Security really isn't anything beyond a "bipartisan commission." Good, poll-tested lines, but that's not an answer, senator.)

9:05 pm ET: Clinton chose not to respond on a personal level to Obama. She's doing what she normally does -- rising above. But can that last tonight?

9:03 pm ET: Brian Williams wastes no time -- jumps right in by asking Obama to back up his promise of being more aggressive. Obama: "Some of this stuff gets overhyped." Good Philadelphia reference with Rocky -- but WHO hyped this fight if not Barack Obama? And here it is: "It does not mean changing positions whenever it's politically convenient." NAFTA, torture, Iraq -- there's the beginning of your laundry list. "what we need right now is honesty with the American people."

8:51 pm ET: We're just about ready to rumble -- and what makes this debate different already is that we essentially know the storyline in advance. It's Obama vs. Clinton -- but how that shakes down depends on what happens on stage. And to make it fun, it looks like they're going to be next to each other on stage.

-----------

Rick Klein from ABC's The Note here -- I'll be online starting at 9 pm ET tonight, blogging from Philadelphia during the Democratic debate. All eyes will be on Barack Obama, as he seeks to deliver on his promise of a sharper series of distinctions with Hillary Clinton. But here's a fascinating piece of pre-debate spin: Clinton strategist Mark Penn is out with a memo seeking to define "the politics of hope" for Obama -- and claiming the label for Clinton herself.

Writes Penn, "Does the 'politics of hope' mean launching attacks on one candidate? Or does it mean laying out a vision for the American people? Does it mean questioning a rival's integrity? Or does it mean talking about the change we need?"

This is some serious spin -- what gives Clinton the right to define Obama's own term? Surely the Clinton campaign would consider any comparison an attack, but that's not a fair standard to judge Obama, John Edwards, or any other candidate on, is it?

Interested in your thoughts before we begin...

5:50 pm ET: I can't ever imagine this much pre-debate spin. The Edwards campaign fires back with its own memo, from campaign manager David Bonior: "Unfortunately, the Clinton campaign has made it clear -- through its choices, its words and its silence -- that it intends to defend the broken system in Washington, where the interests of the American people are bought and sold every day by an army of lobbyists, instead of taking the path that the American people want -– a path that leads to ending the corruption in Washington and bringing the big, bold change we need to America."

7:45 pm ET: We're a little more than hour out -- two quick pieces of buzz. First, and no surprise here, but the stakes are huge for Sen. Obama -- and he made them that big by building up expectations that he would go on attack. Here's a prediction: He'll be the storyline -- in a bad way -- if he doesn't have new things to say that really set himself apart from Sen. Clinton. And the other thing I'll share is that the best thing that could have happened to Mike Gravel is his exclusion from the debate stage. All the reporters I'm talking to are secretly wishing they could be at his mock debate, with him and a Tivo machine, down the street in Philadelphia.

October 30, 2007 in Tancredo, Tom | Permalink | User Comments (46)

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This is ridiculous. Obama, Edwards, etc. do themselves a disservice by going after Hillary on character versus policy. Policy is fair game. Character attacks makes it personal which quickly evaporates the politics of hope.

Posted by: Rick | Oct 30, 2007 2:38:27 PM

Let's hope the democratic candidates don't fall into the trap of feeding the future GOP presidential candidate material for his campaign agains the democratic presidential contender. I personally don't like negative politics as I believe a candidate should be able to stand on their own without negating the candidacy of their fellow candidates.

Posted by: Jackson | Oct 30, 2007 6:09:47 PM

Candidates should envision their beliefs in how the future will be changed by their leadership and not address negativism. I realize negativism gains more press and there lies the problem.

Posted by: Bill | Oct 30, 2007 6:23:58 PM

i will not tell the candidates what to say; nor what i think they should say. A truly American candidate should know what the people of this land need and want. If a candidate is not capable of clearly defining what they stand for, why vote for them. Character assissinations are part of running. The most important part of running for this esteemed office is caring about the people. WE DESERVE SOMEONE WHO CARES ABOUT OUR LIVES AND WILL NOT SELL US TO ANYBODY.

Posted by: bornmann | Oct 30, 2007 6:29:25 PM

My first time. Does anyone actually listen to what's said before commenting?

Posted by: Grrranny | Oct 30, 2007 6:43:52 PM

I would like to ask all the candidates their postion on what went on in HAiti over the last 3 years. Persident Aristide was kidnapped by our govt. Willthis behavior continue under their presidency to promote democaracy? Also Arisitdes spokesperson was kidnapped this past saturday, can they help to free her? Her name is Dr. Maryse Narcisse. Her voice is the voice of the poor in HAiti. AS far as mudslinging Barack Obama has been above this, he does however have to raise the countries consciousness to his presence. Making distinctions between himself and the other candidates is not mudslinging, just diplomatic campaigning. Personally I am ready for a change in the whole system. Too much power in the people with the money.

Posted by: jean-paul bonnet | Oct 30, 2007 6:53:04 PM

Edwards has no right to attack anyone on anything. $1200 haircuts says it all. Obama is the real alternative to Hillary so he should have a real look from the voters.

Posted by: rockychance | Oct 30, 2007 7:22:56 PM

While I am looking forward to this debate, esp. Hillary's end of it, something she said a while back made me stop and think. She remarked about giving $500.00 to every poor small child, sort of like lollipops. I felt this belied a certain absence of familiarity with conditions at the shallow end of the financial pool. We really do need someone who actually understands the nature of poverty, first hand, not just by reputation and anecdote. Most of the people in this country are regular folks, and not wealthy. Something to think about, anyway.

Posted by: Grrranny | Oct 30, 2007 7:25:21 PM

For once I do not think these men have a flair to attack Senator clinton on any issue but to debate her..but I believe the men have failed to service this country as it should have been..therefore, this debate is null and void of any real converstaions to ward off the loss of corruption, judiciary wrongs..powerful lobbyist, and others...Our men in Washington have failed..the harder they try there is three more, if not more who make them look like a line up of me to's..there is more to say for the Senator who has learned to see beyond her own needs and to also stand by her family to be as successful as she is...this is true success, not the men who chance and fail us..for every man who holds a family look good, but time has written the lines of the last with Carter, and Kennedy...I believe we would be in more trouble if a man takes this office..Apachecheynne

Posted by: Apachecheynne | Oct 30, 2007 7:35:53 PM

Regardless of who's running for president, our Government is controlled by Corporations and lobbyists.

Posted by: Senseless | Oct 30, 2007 7:44:02 PM

The issue is not Obama or Edwards or Dodd. Only 12% of the media coverage has been a full discussion of how the candidates policies will impact voters. All of the candidates except Clinton have been clear about what they stand for, but the media gives us non-story upon non-story about laughs, hair cuts, lapel pins, moving to Iowa and who sent what memo. Only 1% of the coverage has been an actual analysis of the candidates past performance. Richardson has spoken eloquently about his previous work and the traditional media won't even pull old footage to discuss what he accomplished. How is the media allowing Clinton to assume to mantle of experience when they don't even have access to the Clinton papers from the library. I've been on line at traditional media outlets trying to read about the MTV town hall last night. Nothing! Obama gave this wonderful response about restoring the rule of law by working with his AG to reverse the excessive executive powers taken by Bush. That is a pretty clear distinction. I have not heard anyone say it that clearly. Not one journalist thought that was important to share with the voters today; however, every channel played repeated footage of Obama's dancing on Ellen. I feel confident predicting that the loser of the debate and ultimate the primary and general elections are the voters. The question is why are our journalist pullling their punches?

Posted by: RealB.G. | Oct 30, 2007 8:10:17 PM

How about "the politics of the false profit"? or.. "the politics of a nobody with no experience and a resume barely fit for a law clerk"? or.."the politics of a compulsive liar with no convictions who stands for nobody and nothing"?

Posted by: cheeseytopping69 | Oct 30, 2007 8:43:18 PM

Let's tell the truth. Tonight is Obama's last night to connect with the net roots. We don't want somebody who will accommodate with the right. We want somebody who will stand up. He has failed to live up to the hype, primarily because he has failed to run a progressive campaign.

Hillary? I will vote for Rudy, hell I'd vote for Huckabee before I voted for Hillary. Burn the party to the ground if this preordained crap goes down. Then you REALLY ARE NO DIFFERENT THAN THEM. It is even more important NOT to turn this democracy into a banana republic than where you have to be the spouse or child of a president to become president. Plus, she is just like her husband. A republican in democratic garb. Nominate her and you will lose an election a monkey could not lose.

Posted by: Clueless1 | Oct 30, 2007 8:49:28 PM

As for Al Gore, I don't want to have to beg someone to run for President. He obviously himself knows that he does not have what it takes at this time to fulfill that role, and he should not be pushed into it. He is much better suited to the environmental realm, where he has found his passion.

Posted by: NotJustAnybody | Oct 30, 2007 9:04:43 PM

Dear RealB. G., I think you're correct, about our current crop of journalists. They appear to have given up language skills and good writing for a kind of slapstick reporting where they seem to be going after the biggest snicker. Like they all attended the "Chevy Chase University of Extreme Journalism". Oh, for a lucid and well written analytic article, long on reason and logic, and short on catch-phrases and snide remarks. That would be so refreshing!

Posted by: Grrranny | Oct 30, 2007 9:05:43 PM

He knows he does not have what it takes? Um, yeah. Maybe that. Or perhaps the folks in the race already simply don't know how else to bash him.

In any event, it doesn't address the fundamental question before us tonight. If progressives aren't gonna vote for Hillary, who is it exactly in between New York and California that is going to vote for her? (Aside from Drudge). The imperiousness ... just look at the debate. What's next? Do I get to vote for Benazir Bhutto? Where's there a Gandhi relative when you need one?

Posted by: Clueless1 | Oct 30, 2007 9:37:47 PM

Edwards made several important observations about Clinton's lack of Iraq specifics. Clinton refuses to be specific about how fast and how many troops will be leaving Iraq, and refuses to take war off the table with Iran.

Posted by: Vargas | Oct 30, 2007 9:43:11 PM

The Supreme court did not hand the presidency to Bush. The excellent recount done by the Miami Herald proves that Bush had more votes -- not a lot more, but enough to win. I wish the Democrats would stop spreading this rumor.

Posted by: handy andy | Oct 30, 2007 9:52:14 PM

Clinton is very proud of the progress of the Clinton's of the 90's. I guess that includes her husband's support of NAFTA and exporting jobs.

Posted by: Vargas | Oct 30, 2007 9:52:42 PM

Clinton has refused to be specific about anything. Even her talking points and platform materials are difficult to locate, if they exist at all. Something is suspect when a person refuses to be held to her word, and thus, refuses to put anything in writing.

Posted by: NotJustAnybody | Oct 30, 2007 9:52:55 PM

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