Liveblogging the Ohio Democratic Debate

We've got one more debate for you before the March 4 primaries: the MSNBC Democratic debate tonight in Cleveland, Ohio. Will Clinton go on the attack? Or will the candidates both once again be voices of peace and Democratic Party unity? None of the regular talking heads seem to have any idea, and neither do we. All we know is that this is Clinton's last debate before the primaries that may well determine whether her shot at the presidency will end at the Democratic primaries. Either way, we're liveblogging debate, giving you the play-by-play and our take on what we're seeing as we see it. Thanks for joining us.

EDIT: Capitol Annex writer and president of the online netroots group Texas Progressive Alliance, Vince Leibowitz, will be briefly debating an Ohio blogger on BBC World Service Radio tonight. It will be broadcast live, we are told, as well as repeated throughout the next few days. The live debate should be coming on any minute now; you can catch that by going to the BBC World Service site and clicking on "Listen Live." The debate is over, but you will be able to hear it periodically over BBC World Service.

7:56 You know the prognosticators are at a loss when all they have to talk about in the pre-game is what words would be in a Democratic debate drinking game. No, I'm not making that up.

8:02 Brian Williams is kicking things off for us, explaining the ground rules — or, more appropriately, lack thereof: no flashing lights, no hard time limits, just moderator-enforced "reasonable" rules.

Williams comes off looking to pick a fight, noting the difference between the conciliatory Texas debate and Clinton's recent stump speeches, calling out Obama for what she considers negative tactics in recent mailers and flyers from the Obama campaign.

She sounds much nicer than her on-stump "shame on you" tone, but she doesn't back off from the accusations — she states that Obama's characterizations were inaccurate.

Obama's response is as we heard last debate: he says that the mailings are indeed accurate, and that she is in some way forcing people to get health care. He disputes that his plan will leave 15 million people out, but notes that Clinton has sent mailers on that out, and they're negative, but he hasn't complained about it because that's how campaigns are run. That's odd — it seems a bit like he's comparing his mailers and Clinton's as similar, and at the same time saying that Clinton's were negative.

8:12 OK, you can mark this as the fastest that the moderators have ever lost control of a debate. Clinton and Obama are having back-and-forths on the details of their health care plan, and Williams can't seem to do anything to control it. Clinton argues that without a mandate, health insurers can "cherry-pick" the insured and everyone will pay the "hidden tax" of health care costs for the uninsured and underinsured that have to be absorbed by the government. Obama argues that the mandate will fine people who are required to purchase insurance and still can't afford it. Clinton gets another notch here; Obama has stated that anyone that wants health care will be able to afford it under his plan (as Clinton has), so he seems to be contradicting himself. If people still can't afford it, how is it universal coverage? Obama cites an example of that problem occurring in Massachusetts as evidence.

8:18 The next question is on NAFTA; Williams notes that the Houston Chronicle thinks it's great, and that Ohio doesn't tend to think that. Clinton takes an aside to note that she keeps being asked the first question in most of these issues, and after watching the Saturday Night Live skit on the primary race, maybe somebody should be asking Obama if he needs another pillow. On NAFTA, Clinton's said in many previous debates that she thinks it has problems and needs fixing, and reiterates again that she believes we need a trade "time-out" where we reevaluate these trade deals. She gets a hometown citation in when she notes that Obama's been criticizing her plans on fixing NAFTA, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer examined his criticisms and called them erroneous.

8:21 Obama again states that Clinton has not always been against NAFTA, and said in her Senate race that it had been good for New York and good for America. Tim Russert continues along that thread, mentioning to Clinton that she'd spoken positively about NAFTA in 1996 and 2000 as well. Clinton is visibly unhappy at Russert — as we've mentioned before, there has been a good deal of bad blood between Russert and the Clintons, and his pulling out quotes from twelve years ago probably doesn't do much to improve that image. Clinton states that Russert's being selective as to his quotes, and that she has not only consistently spoken about NAFTA's being flawed, but has acted, voting to toughen numerous trade deals. Russert tries to pin her down by asking if she'll go to Canada and Mexico and say that we're out of NAFTA, and she says no, she'll use the threat of leaving NAFTA to force a renegotiation of the trade agreement.

Obama says that he agrees with Clinton about using the threat of leaving as leverage for a renegotiation. I'm sure the previously noted SNL writers are having a field day with that.

8:30 OK, this is uncanny: the next topic is the economy, and Clinton gets the first question again. And it's from Russert, again trying to dig up dirt on Clinton and stump her on stage. He mentioned Clinton's expansive economic plan, and said that back in her 2000 Senate race, she promised that upstate New York would gain 200,000 jobs where it has actually lost a net 30,000 jobs. So is her plan of 5 million new jobs across America a little overzealous? She says that when she pledged 200,000 new jobs, she expected that Al Gore would be president, and that they'd have an economically responsible leader instead of one that has taken us to the brink of a recession.

8:36 Obama finally gets the first question on a topic. He's asked about foreign policy, and about his ability to deal with them as compared to Clinton. Not exactly the hardball sort of question that was given to Clinton. He gets to talk from the stump here, talking about how his choices and his judgements have proven themselves to be better than both Clinton's and McCain's.

Clinton notes that Obama spoke out against the war in 2002, but in 2004 when he actually had to vote in Congress he distanced himself from that position and has voted identically to Clinton on every vote related to Iraq. She also notes that Obama had effectively said he'd bomb Pakistan if necessary, and meet with the "worst dictators in the world" without any sort of consideration as to their intent. Obama states that the 2002 commitment wasn't just a speech — he was a consistently outspoken opponent of the war. They are, of course, speaking to two different things. I have to say, this more contentious debate is really bringing out some serious points of difference between the two candidates' messages. And he clarifies that as to Pakistan, he was referring to going in if there was actionable intelligence against al-Quaeda that Pakistan refused to act on.

8:42 Iraq is brought up specifically next. Russert asks that if, when either Clinton or Obama pull out combat troops as they plan to do, but leave troops behind to protect the embassy and against interference by Iran, whether they would pull out all troops if Iraqis got angry that they were pulling out and demanded all troops out, with none remaining. That's a remarkably strange question, Tim. Both Clinton and Obama say they'd pull out troops if demanded by Iraq. I half expected for one to catch the other in a factual error — embassy troops would be protecting U.S. soil, not Iraqi, and thus would only be subject to a national sovereignty claim from Iraq if they cut all diplomatic ties with the U.S., which is pretty unlikely no matter how angry they get — but no luck. Clinton basically cuts off Russert's next unusual hypothetical, thank goodness, saying that he's making a lot of unfounded assumptions in his questions and that hypotheticals don't help anyone.

Clinton does get one factual zinger in there: she notes that Obama speaks of what needs to be done in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but he's been chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs and has yet to have a single oversight hearing on NATO's role in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Obama concedes the point, saying that because of the Bush administration it wouldn't have mattered anyway. That's not much of an answer, I think. Clinton doesn't get a followup — Brian Williams somehow gets us to the first commercial break instead.

9:01 Well, we're back, and apparently MSNBC starts with a technical glitch — they tried to play a clip of Obama speaking about Clinton, but instead they played the clip of Clinton getting a little ribbing in at Obama by talking about wishful thinking, and the heavens opening up, and angels singing, and change occurring. Obama says he appreciates the humor and gives Clinton points for delivery, and says he understands the greater point she's trying to make, and that he's been clear that hope is not enough — we still have to work for change, but we don't get any farther along that by alienating people. He mentions as he had before that people were cut out of the first health care debates during the prior Clinton administration, and that may have been part of the reason it didn't pass. A very good answer from the Senator. He does say, "I'm not interested in talk; I'm not interested in speeches" — what happened to "words matter?" I think I liked the first way better. But he probably needs to be moving away from that point to defend the idea that he has some meat behind his message, so I guess the shift makes sense.

9:06 Obama finally gets asked a contentious question, on keeping one's word and McCain's pointing out that Obama had pledged to accept public financing and its limits in the general election, but was backing away from that claim now. Obama answers that he isn't the nominee yet, and that if he's the nominee, he'll discuss a way for him and McCain to fund their races that is fair to both sides. I'm pretty sure it is glaring to just about everybody that he didn't say he'd actually accept public financing just now, like he'd pledged to do before. That's an attack I'm sure McCain will be happy to level against Obama in the general, considering his current money problems. No follow-up from Russert on that — really, the accuracy of the claims that he gets a pass is starting to become very, very hard to ignore.

9:09 Clinton is asked about releasing her tax records for the purposes of transparency, and the releasing of the documents from the National Archive that include her daily schedules during the Clinton administration. I think Russert expected some pushback on those topics, but Clinton says she'll do both. Russert asks if she'll have them by the primary next Tuesday — seriously? With Hillary campaigning across two states and Bill making six appearances a day in various cities? Sure enough, that's effectively her answer: "I can't have them by then; I'm a little busy right now." Touche.

Obama is asked about Farrakhan's endorsement of him, and Obama says that he has consistently denounced Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam. Clinton notes that she explicitly refused Farrakhan's support long ago, and that there's a difference between denouncing the guy and actively rejecting his support. Obama says that he doesn't see the difference, and that if Senator Clinton thinks it's stronger, he'll both denounce and reject. (I'm nitpicky about the English language — and Clinton is right, there is a distinct difference between the two. Like I said, I like that "words matter.")

And we have another break.

9:16 Obama gets asked about the National Journal ranking rating him the most liberal senator in Congress. It's a pretty silly question, and Obama points out its silliness and the silliness of the criteria upon which the National Journal based their rankings.

9:24 Obama gets to address Bush's failure in dealing with Putin and Russia, and Clinton follows up with a strong answer on the many foreign policy problems that Bush has led us into, and we could as easily be talking about Russia as China or a number of other places where we have a challenge ahead of us. She is really on home turf when she gets to talk about details of foreign policy, as many have noted before.

9:28 On whether there were any votes that either would take back in their time in the Senate, Clinton mentions the vote in Iraq because of Bush's abuse of the authority given him, and Obama mentions his inaction in the congressional intervention in the Schiavo affair, saying inaction can be as costly as action.

9:32 Semi-closing arguments, as Williams asks each candidate what the main question is that the other candidate has to answer for the American people. Both strike conciliatory tones to start their answer, Obama noting that Clinton would make a good candidate and a better one than John McCain, and Clinton saying the same. Obama's answer is effectively that his track record shows that he'd be a better candidate, but there seemed to be a lot more focus in that answer on striking the same sort of conciliatory tone as Clinton did at the end of the last debate. Clinton's answer is that, though both candidates would make history, people have to pick the person who can actually change the country. She says that we need someone in office who will fight for the middle classes and the underprivileged, and she's that person. Once again, it seems like she's trying to take the "fighting for change" mantle that John Edwards was carrying when he was in the race. And that ends the debate.