Some Post-Debate Thoughts

You've seen a lot of headlines today about how there were no knockout blows in the debate last night. The feeling at the debate seems to have been different than the feeling projected on TV, and now I think the real argument is whether the tie goes to Clinton or Obama, and what the final ten days will hold for the campaigns.

Each candidate had moments that were great and each had moments that were not. Clinton's closing was emotional and heart-felt, continuing along the path of redefining her as One Of Us rather than yet another cold politician; Obama's answer to Clinton's calls for getting real — in which he took umbrage to the idea that his supporters are 'somehow delusional' — was an effective counterstroke to a considerable and potentially effective aspect of Clinton's attempts to draw distinctions between herself and Obama.

Whereas Senator Obama is normally eloquent to an almost superhuman degree, he has never fared as well in the debate format as Senator Clinton, although the sheer volume of debates has sharpened his competitive speaking and on-the-spot rhetorical skills a great deal. Still, he sounded ponderous and out of his comfort zone when talking about the mistakes of his youth, which almost always seems to be ground upon which Obama has unsure footing.

Senator Clinton seemed to suffer from received wisdom guiding her on the Xerox comment (which, in an additional aspect, felt like really dated terminology), and also from her inexplicable burn on well-respected State Senator Kirk Watson, who was seated mere rows in front of her. The plagiarism attack seemed weak and didn't stick. All of the negative stuff underperformed, and I have no doubt that the negative stuff came at the behest of frustrated campaign senior staff, for whom the last six weeks must feel like a slow-motion disaster.

This is not to say that Hillary Clinton is soft, or incapable of mounting an effective offense. On my personal Top 5 list of people that I would rather never have to face in political battle, Bill and Hillary Clinton occupy at least three of those spots. However, it is my opinion that Clinton is not sold on the idea of going totally nuclear against Obama, and I think you could see that in her comments at the end of the debate. The sentiment felt real and her delivery was natural. The crowd's positive response and reaction was no surprise.

That makes me think that despite heavy pressures to get negative fast with March 4th as the last stand, Clinton has made a choice to continue along the same path she has been on for a while. Certainly, she has used negative message in her attempts to differentiate herself from Obama, but the rhetoric the media thinks of as highly negative is not. Not really. I kept thinking that maybe there were things the Clinton campaign had put out that I hadn't seen that were as bad as the media made it sound, but the stuff between the two, while intense, is not nearly as negative or acrimonious as it could be, or even as many campaigns in smaller universes regularly become. If she were really committed to drawing blood, she would have done so last night. She did not lack the minds to formulate a plan of attack that would start an all-out bloodbath, and she did not lack the opportunity to deliver the opening salvos of a final battle. If she had wanted to go to war, she would have. She did not.

She will certainly pursue other angles and explore strategies in organization and communication, and I have no doubt that the question of the Florida and Michigan delegates must and will be answered before this is all over. There may still be time to launch the thousand ships, and ten days is an eternity in presidential politics. But where I expected to see pitched battle at new levels of ferocity last night, I saw good and bad moments for both campaigns and little else that was new. Hillary Clinton is an experienced politician, and it now looks as if her experience will be the focus of her campaign efforts for the forseeable future.