Liveblogging The MSNBC Nevada Democratic Primary Debate

Tonight's primary debate at 8PM CST may be more important than many imagine, as the three frontrunners — Clinton, Obama, and Edwards — are statistically tied in Nevada, in a primary season that's already notorious for bringing the unexpected. Join us here tonight as we liveblog the debate, updating this post with the debate play-by-play, and give us your take on how it's going in the comments.

7:55 The candidates are getting on the stage now, and we're getting the pre-debate spin from Chuck Todd at MSNBC. Smart cookie, that guy. He notes that very few people typically attend the Nevada caucus, and therefore polling for such an event is near to impossible — we probably won't know much about how Nevada will go until Saturday, the day of the caucus.

8:00 Brian Williams starts off the debate, saying we'll start with 90-second questions — I guess he's backed off from the free-for-all format that we saw in the past couple of the debates. That's sort of a shame, I think. He also notes that Mitt Romney is the projected winner in Michigan's Republican primary, with McCain second and Huckabee third.

8:05 The first question is, of course, on the race issue that has been overpublicized in the press recently, particularly with awkward statements about Obama on the part of a Clinton supporter and sometimes acerbic responses from both the Clinton and Obama camp. Williams asks Clinton, "How did we get here?" Clinton notes that both she and Obama agree that race shouldn't be a part of the campaign, and that we are at a point where we need to focus on coming together to work on the problems we have that affect everybody. Obama agrees, saying that there's much more that we have in common than what separates us. Edwards notes that he lived in the South when segregation was still alive, and he has personally seen the pain that it's caused up close and thinks we all have an enormous responsibility to go forward.

8:09 Russert notes that Obama's press secretary was actively pushing the story very strongly over the past few days, and asks in light of his statements that we need to unite whether Obama regrets having pushed the story so hard. He says that as both he and Clinton have seen, staffs tend to get overzealous, and he takes responsibility for the campaign actions and hopes that he's clarified his position on that in his speeches yesterday and today. Asked if he thinks there's a deliberate attempt to marginalize him as the black candidate, he quickly answers "no," as he does when asked if he thinks race had something to do with his loss in New Hampshire that flew in the face of polling immediately before the vote.

8:11 Clinton is asked about the speech that her contributor made that spurred the whole race discussion in the media, where the issue of Obama's confessions of misdeeds at a young age in his book was brought up. She stays on the message she and Obama had been sharing, that the race issue clouds the real issues in this coming presidential election of helping solve the problems America is faced with. Then Edwards is asked a viewer-submitted question, as to why a voter shouldn't be resentful of having to pick between the first woman and the first African-American with a viable shot at the presidency, along with the followup question, "what's a white man to do when faced with these two historic candidacies?" Edwards says that, as he's said before, he respects that they both don't want their gender or race to be issues, but he thinks it speaks very well as to the future of the Democratic party and of America.

8:18 Obama is asked about the now-infamous point in the last debate where Clinton was asked about her "likability problems" and he answered that she was "likable enough," leading to some accusations that he was being petty toward her. He says that he does regret saying that, as he was intending to mean that she was plenty likable and he disagreed with the characterization that she wasn't likable. Edwards is then asked about Clinton's "piling-on" ad which implied that Obama and he were ganging up on Clinton during that debate, and he says that that wasn't the case, and that his job as a presidential candidate is to speak the truth as he sees it, and to voice his message that corporate big-money interests are ruining government and that he wants to get them out and let government operate for the benefit of Americans.

8:23 Clinton is asked... I'll fill this in in a minute; it was stump talking points about experience. EDIT: Clinton had been asked about what effect these divisive discussions could have on the general election. Clinton said that there would be unity in the Democratic party, and noted that all candidates had a lot of agreement on issues and that the key issue would be who was ready on day one to lead as president. And just prior to her question, someone in the audience started screaming about how these were all "race-based questions" and was apparently promptly escorted out.

8:26 Obama is asked about his statement that all the candidates have strengths and weaknesses, and then each candidate is asked what his greatest strength and weakness is. Obama says his greatest strength is bringing people together, and his greatest weakness is organization and keeping track of papers — he needs people to help him with that in his office. Edwards says his greatest strength is fighting to bring change in the face of powerful interests, and his weakness is strong emotional reactions to suffering around him — I'm not sure if that sounded too much like he was trying to turn that into another stump talking point, but it may have. Clinton says her strength is her history of working to bring about change, and her weakness is getting impatient with people who don't see the good that can be done.

She takes a bit of time at the end to note that the "vision thing" that Obama was citing is important, but the organization to hold people accountable is just as critical, and we're seeing the failure currently of a president that wouldn't hold people accountable.

Obama takes it another way: he notes that organizationally, Bush was fine — he was always on time, and he's sure his papers were very well organized. What was missing in his case wasn't organization skills, it was working with people — he couldn't bring people together in government.

8:33 Obama then gets asked about the many false rumors about him on the Internet — that he's Muslim, took the oath of office on the Koran instead of the Bible, won't recite the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. He starts out by clarifying that, yes, he is a Christian and took the oath of office on the Bible, and that he has recited the Pledge and led it on the Senate floor many times. Then back to the consistent Democratic message that both he and Clinton have been on — that those are things used to cloud the bigger issues that affect all Americans that we need to work on in the next presidency.

8:39 After a break, we're asked about the economy, and how Citigroup is looking for international investment to keep them afloat. Is there a problem with this, and if so what should we do?

Clinton gets to do her policy-wonk think, explaining about "sovereign wealth funds" and how they need much more transparency and that the World Bank and IMF needs to be controlling them and enforcing their rules. She brings it back to the national housing crisis and points out that we need to do something about that, and though Bush has no plan, she does.

Apparently one of the "companies" keeping Citibank afloat is Kuwait. Edwards is asked if that changes anything, and what to do. He notes that Clinton's points were correct in how to deal with that, and quickly goes to speak to the housing crisis as well, and how the economy is still growing from a bird's-eye perspective but the money is going to the richest in America while the poor suffer. Obama follows up and notes that he's about to answer Edwards' question — the reason Kuwait can do that sort of thing is because we don't have any real energy policy, and we're sending out nearly a billion dollars a day in money for energy to countries like Kuwait. He also shifts to the housing crisis, of course, and talks about holding financial industries accountable like everyone else.

8:30 Edwards is asked about the bankruptcy bill he voted for making it more difficult to get debt relief, and whether he regrets his vote in the light of Americans suffering. He says he does, as half of bankruptcies are due to medical costs, and goes on to talk about the costs unfairly leveled on lower income Americans, specifically mentioning his plan to pay college tuition for those willing to work at least 10 hours a week and paying for it by taking banks that make $4-5 billion a year out of the student loan equation.

Clinton is asked about the same thing, and says that yes, she regrets it as well — but notes the that was the 2001 bill that never became law, and that the 2005 bill that did become law, she voted against. Even I was confused as to what bill was being referred to, honestly. That's an interesting clarification. She says that we have to reform bankruptcy law now, and we have to — yup, you guessed it — we have to do something about the housing crisis.

Obama opposed both the 2001 and 2005 bills, and talks about getting rid of the influence of special interests in Washington — again, he is echoing Edwards' message from early on in the campaign. We're not seeing much that's new in this debate so far.

8:53 Obama is asked a viewer question from a middle-income retiree regarding Obama's plan to increase taxes on dividends and capital gains, which would affect retirees whose main source of income is through investments that would fall under the capital gains tax. Obama says that his plan exempts middle-income earners from the increases in those taxes, as the increases are intended for the very wealthy, noting that CEO's typically actually pay a lower marginal tax rate than their secretaries.

Clinton speaks about interest rate freezes for home loans, and how it's in line with the Fed's current cutting of interest rates, and how there are short, middle, and long term goals for the economy and how giving Americans more security, in their jobs, in their health care, and such, will itself stimulate the economy.

The candidates get an amusing reminder from Brian Williams that they do, indeed, have a light system that tells them how much time they have remaining on their answers.

8:59 The next segment has candidates asking each other questions. Edwards gets to ask both Obama and Clinton a question first.

His first question is to Obama, and he asks about taking money from lobbyists and special interests — why do they do it? Do they expect anything from it? Obama answers that if someone in the medical industry is inspired by his message of change and donates to him, it gets recorded as a donation from the medical industry even though it wasn't organized in any such fashion. He notes that he is the only one on stage that's passed legislation to increase transparency by revealing bundlers for candidates, and he's sponsored a public financing bill in Congress as well.

Apparently Brian Williams was mistaken; everyone gets only one question. Clinton's is to Obama, asking if he'll cosponsor her bill removing Bush's ability to bind the next president with his policy decisions. Obama says "we can definitely work on that," and explains that Democrats are united in opposing Bush's militaristic policy.

In a Williams followup, all three candidates state that they're in favor of getting troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. Russert notes that all three had refused to pledge that all troops would be out of Iraq in the first year earlier, and that this seems different. They all note that, no, that's a different question, as some troops would always have to remain to, for example, protect the embassy. And then, inn response to Edwards saying that he's been the most aggressive of the candidates as far as getting troops out of Iraq, the candidates all fire at each other a little on exactly how far they're willing to go with that. Edwards wants all combat troops out, an end to all combat missions, and no military bases. Obama ends all combat missions and military bases, but wants to keep forces protecting key border areas. Clinton didn't detail her position, other than wanting to start a responsible troop withdrawal within 60 days of starting her presidency.

And now we have the second break of the evening.

9:14 I should note that I've filled in the small gap above in the liveblog, over Clinton's question on the possible effects of the race issues on the general election. Also, I should note that despite his attempts to sue for a place here, Kucinich is obviously not present at this debate.

Clinton gets asked about veterans' rights, from the perspective of a statute requiring that colleges that receive federal funding allow military recruiters on campus. She picks on Republicans for not supporting the troops, and notes her support for the military and ROTC programs on campus. When asked specifically if colleges without ROTC programs should be required to have them, she says that there are other ways they can meet the requirements under the statute, but they definitely shouldn't do anything to undermine the respect of our military. Obama says he'd support enforcing the statute, and that the military is hurting from current soldiers' tours of duty being extended to far more than it should have been. Edwards also supports enforcing the statute, and speaks to his experience with veterans in the U.S. who weren't receiving the support they needed.

9:22 Obama gets to speak about Yucca Mountain, and discusses the problems with the nuclear waste storage facility. Clinton notes that she voted against Yucca Mountain and thinks that it's completely unworkable, though one of Obama's largest supporters wants to make Yucca Mountain the nuclear waste facility and Edwards voted twice for it. Obama responds that it speaks to his commitment that despite the fact that his state has more nuclear power plants than any other, he's still against Yucca Mountain. Edwards states that he's against nuclear power plants unlike the other two candidates, as it's unsafe and an easy terrorist target; when Clinton states that he answered why he voted for it twice, he notes that he's been saying for years that because of the science revealed since then and the forged documents regarding Yucca Mountain, it's clearly not a viable option.

9:27 Asked about the bill investing in nuclear power plants that he voted for, Obama stated that it was the largest investment in alternative fuels we'd seen, and that until we had a real energy plan it was the best we could get. Clinton voted against it, and she points out that it was widely known that the bill had a number of giveaways to big oil and gas industry players at Cheney's behest.

In going to Edwards, Russert notes that though Edwards is against nuclear power, that seems unreasonable because of how much power is needed to wean us off of oil. Edwards does a solid job with the answer, noting that if we doubled the nuclear power plants in the world tomorrow, that would take care of one seventh of the carbon problem, so clearly we need research into a broad spectrum of alternative energy sources, as well as a moratorium on building coal-fired plants until we can capture and sequester carbon. Clinton also speaks for carbon sequestration of coal-fired plants, and Obama speaks as to the broader picture of how it affects Americans' standard of living.

9:33 Edwards is asked next about immigration, and specifically about why we don't have English as the official language, required for immigrants. Edwards states that we need comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship, and part of the path to citizenship is that English should be required to become a citizen. Clinton is asked about a campaign staffer speaking about how Latinos don't typically vote for African-Americans, and whether that's the stance of her campaign. She says that no, the staffer was simply speaking about historical trend, and that there's a lot that's being done now to benefit American unity and "black-brown" issues in particular. Obama, also asked about that trend, says that he hasn't seen it, as Hispanics voted for him in Illinois. He speaks about Latino and African-American dropout rates, and how we can shore up the school systems but that parents are also a critical part of that, and parents need to parent. Clinton says that we should be giving parents the tools they need to better help their kids, but the community should also get involved in its kids' well-being, giving some examples from her work with the 100 Black Men organization in New York. Edwards says that additionally, we have to support these families economically, making sure everyone has health care and such.

9:41 Clinton is asked about homicide rates in Nevada; the leading cause of death for young black men in Nevada is "guns — homicide." Clinton is in support of gun controls, and mentions the assault weapons ban in particular, but when asked about a national gun registry, she states that she has backed off of that stance from years ago. Obama also says that universal licensing and registration of guns is not something that's currently possible, but that there is legislation in Congress being held up by the NRA which would strike a balance between respecting the Second Amendment and controlling deaths from gun violence in the streets. Edwards evokes his Southern heritage in answering Tim Russert's question of whether it seems that Democrats that used to be overall in support of national licensing and registration have backed off of that as not politically viable, in that he says he's always been against it, as he grew up in an environment where guns were respected and gun use was responsible. He does note that he's also for the assault weapons ban as well.

Last break of the evening!

9:49 On our return, Williams asks Clinton about statements that seem to imply that she'd be better at dealing with terrorism than her primary opponents. She stands by what she said; she says the highest duty of a president is to protect and defend our country, and that at the end of the day, voters have to decide who they think will best do that. She states that she feels prepared to take on the responsibility of dealing with the international issues that terrorism brings about.

Obama says that we've been dominated by the politics of fear in response to 9/11. He says that Clinton has done a good job in response to 9/11, but that when she uses the specter of a terrorist attack in campaigning, she resorts to that same sort of politics of fear we've been experiencing.

Clinton responds that it is a fact that when Prime Minister Gordon Brown took office in the U.K., he immediately was tested by two failed attempts at al-Quaeda terrorist attacks, and implies that it is very likely that the same would happen here. She says there's a difference between using fear as a political tool like Bush does and acknowledging that there are real threats out there that have to be dealt with.

Edwards was asked about his call to Pakistani President Musharraf after the death of Benazir Bhutto, and whether it was appropriate. Edwards says it was; he actually called the Pakistani ambassador in the U.S. saying that he wanted to speak with President Musharraf, so the call was cleared, and that he spoke with Musharraf about tough requirements that he needed to meet after the tragedy, just as the president should be doing.

9:56 The candidates are finally asked when they decided to run and what spurred it. Clinton decided over New Year's, 2007. Edwards states that he decided in December of '06, after talking to his wife and family about what the cause of their lives was. Obama also decided December '06, after discussing with his family what he could bring as president. There's your feel-good question of the day, clearly indicating that the debate is over!