11/07 CNN Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate: The Liveblog (and analysis)

OK, there are only 15 minutes left in CNN's debate countdown — time to start the liveblog! Today's debate will determine whether Clinton's weaknesses in the last debate will be significant roadblocks that may sidetrack her nomination or merely road bumps on the way to a shoo-in.

You can also jump to the analysis at the bottom.

6:55 This is the best political team on TV? EDIT: I don't buy it. And apparently 94% of CNN viewers think that we won't be seeing much of substance on immigration tonight, which Lou Dobbs thinks is a crime against America. Never mind that most polls show that Democratic primary voters, on the whole, don't consider illegal immigration much of an issue in the first place. Funny how the "liberal media" concentrates on issues created by Republicans.

7:00 Wolf Blitzer lets us know that this is the first debate ever held in Nevada. Seems CNN at least has more of a sense of theatrics — the candidates don't start on stage, and they're being announced like home-team starters at a basketball game. Edwards first, then Dodd, Obama, Clinton (the two of them side by side? No fisticuffs, Senators!), Kucinich, Richardson, Biden. No Gravel — the chances of fisticuffs have just been cut by 50%.

7:04 Good lord. Really? We're having commentary on the debate DURING THE DEBATE. CNN has seriously jumped the shark. At least the candidates aren't listening to pundits talking about how they expect attacks against Clinton and such; instead, we're seeing introductions and handshakes on stage. But while other debates have moved toward wasting less time on BS trivialities and letting more questions be asked, CNN apparently doesn't care quite so much about substance. And to think that these guys won an Emmy.

7:07 But CNN thanked Nevada and UNLV so the candidate wouldn't have to. MSNBC thanks them before they're on the air, chuckleheads. Time will be done on an "honor system," to be gently reminded by Wolf when they go over. "Answers must stay on topic." Heard that before.

7:08 First question, to Clinton: How do you respond to folks that say you don't take strong stances, including the person on stage that says you use "the politics of parsing?" Not that this was predictable or anything. "The American people know where I stand for the last 35 years." Predictable answer, too.

7:11 Obama gets the follow-up, and calls her a good politician running a good campaign, but says she doesn't give direct answers. And, of course, he cites the immigrant driver's license issue that we all knew was going to be brought up after the last debate. I should have written this all ahead of time so far; we pretty much knew what the first question was going to be, and Clinton and Obama's opening statements on that.

Uh-oh — Clinton fires back, pointing out that he says that people should step up, but he backed off on universal health care — his plan would leave some without coverage. Obama is not happy. "I do provide universal healthcare." He talks about his health plan making coverage affordable, but Clinton fires back that coverage is not mandated, so people that don't feel they can afford it still won't be covered. And Obama dukes it out with Wolf for more time to speak — this must be Vegas; all we're missing is the ring — Obama says that Clinton doesn't mandate health care either, because she's not garnishing wages to get it done. Wow, really? That's sort of much.

7:14 Edwards gets to go next, and he gets the points in the first fifteen minutes for staying on message. There's another Clinton attack there, but it only touches on healthcare and stays mostly on the idea of wanting to restore trust government. Clinton fires back the "American people know where I stood for 35 years," to a smirk from Biden. And she says that Edwards wasn't for universal healthcare back in 2004.

7:21 Edwards didn't fight for a response to Clinton, and Biden got to speak. Looks like I'm going to get my wish again of seeing if Biden can pull out a good performance and still be ignored by the press — he takes the high ground everyone else yielded, he does it with respect for others, he gets raving applause, and when he starts doing the "resume thing" and saying everything he's done in the past however many years and Wolf triet to cut him off, his answer is "but — you're right." And the crowd goes wild.

Edwards then gets to answer, being asked that if he's changed his mind on Iraq, can't Clinton change her mind too? His answer is, yes, you can learn from mistakes, and you should, but that's different from saying two things at exactly the same time.

Dodd gets to speak next, and he points out the shrillness of the tone of the debate — sorry, Senator, Biden already grabbed the high ground, and you simply aren't doing it as well.

Richardson tries as well, saying Edwards is starting a class war, Obama is starting a generational war, and Clinton isn't ending the war we've got right now, and he just wants to give peace a chance. Lets him take the silver for the High Road competition.

7:25 Everyone is asked if they'll support the Democratic nominee for President, no matter who he or she is. Everyone says yes, except for Kucinich, who would only support them if they're in favor of getting out of Iraq. (Well, and Biden tries to crack a joke about not supporting any of those guys. Don't push your luck, Senator — you can't always be funny.)

I'd also like to note that Blitzer called the candidates "you Democrats." Cute.

7:27 Next question is immigration, a topic which CNN cares deeply about. Obama talks about how employers have a better chance of being hit by lightning than being prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers. But he gets asked, straightforwardly, if he supports driver's licenses for "illegal immigrants." Edwards asks if that is with or without comprehensive immigration reform, and Wolf says without, because it's not likely to happen any time soon. Edwards says that he's against, but that he disagrees with the premise that we can't do it in the first place. Dodd goes on a too-long rant about the American people wanting clarity, and then gives a long, unclear version of a "no." Obama, when pressed, finally says "yes" — the only person on the stage to do so. Clinton: "no." Kucinich: first of all, they're not "illegal immigrants," they're undocumented. Way to go, Denny K! Stick it to the closet Republican. And secondly, this needs to be handled through immigration reform. And the first place to start is to repeal NAFTA and renegotiate trade with Mexico. That might have been the loudest cheering so far tonight. Richardson sticks with the message that all this must be predicated on immigration reform. Biden: "no." He loves those single-word answers.

7:37 Dodd gets to start the education section — an automatic boost for him, as Democrats in general are great on the issue on the whole, and he has creds to go along with that. You've heard it all before — No Child Left Behind is broken, Head Start is great, so on. But he sells it well, and he got to say it first. Kucinich gets asked about education from the angle of teachers' unions, and he goes off on his support for unions and his being the worker's candidate. Clinton gets asked more specifically on merit pay, and says she supports rewarding the team that teaches the student, because they work as a whole. Biden gets asked about merit pay as well, and apparently he's no fan: he thinks teachers should be rewarded based on their actions to further educate themselves as they go along. Merit pay is a problem, he says, because the principal controls the merit pay. Gets a good line he says his father told him: "Don't tell me what you value; show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value."

7:43 Biden gets asked about Pakistan next. He and Richardson are probably the biggest foreign policy experts on the stage, if you ask me. And he goes into detail about the levels of aid he'd give to Musharraf, but he gets in early that he actually spoke directly to Musharraf and Bhutto before President Bush did, to some applause. Richardson gets to answer next, and though Biden gets policy wonk quotes, Richardson ties it back more to bigger principles of human rights, and says that we chose to worry about security and ignore human rights in supporting Musharraf. Blitzer asks, "to make sure," if human rights "can at times" be more important than national security. WOW, he's a Republican. Richardson, visibly nervous, gives a hesitant "yes," to hesitant applause. He gets more of his nerve back as his answer goes on.

7:47 Edwards answers next, and draws the clear lines about nuclear proliferation and the like that he's drawn before with regards to foreign policy. Obama takes the answer I've been waiting for someone to take — that they're not exclusive, and actually that one can help the other — but when pushed by Wolf, he goes toward national security. Dodd rambles, but he gives a mind-boggling answer: he says that national security trumps human rights, citing that the president swears an oath to protect the Constitution and protect and defend the United States. Funny — I thought the Constitution protected some basic human rights, and therefore as per the oath the two are equal and Wolf can't get the easy answer he wants on such a fundamentally complex question. But clearly that's my answer, and not the candidates'. Clinton agrees that national security is more important that human rights. This is, honestly, just a little depressing to watch. Who knows — maybe I'm just a crazy liberal hippie. But when you start looking at the two of those as opposing goals, I think we automatically lose.

7:54 Now we're on Iraq; this should be much easier. Richardson gets to answer whether the surge is working, since we're losing fewer soldiers. Richardson, of course, says no — I agree; "a little bit hellish than it was before" is pretty poor justification to call the surge a success — and notes that 65% of Iraqis now think that it is OK to shoot American soldiers. Wow. Kucinich ties the destabilization of Pakistan back to Iraq, and Obama sticks with the "let's get out of Iraq" message.

The conversation then turns to trade, and Kucinich, of course, is in his "let's get rid of NAFTA" element. He also gets a snipe in at Edwards, who apparently criticized Clinton's trade pushes with China but who himself voted for normalized trade relations with China. Edwards answers that he was in favor of including China in the WTO, but that China wasn't held to the standards that membership in the WTO put upon it when they should have been. Clinton gets asked about NAFTA from the context of Gore's vice-presidential debate with Perot, where Perot was strongly against NAFTA: "was Perot right?" Ouch. The senator: "All I remember about that debate was a bunch of charts." Cute. She says we didn't get what we want out of it, and we need to re-evaluate all trade agreements. Dodd contrasts the Peru trade agreement with NAFTA, as it has labor and environmental assurances built in, and implies that Obama may have switched his position on it, which Obama clarifies he hasn't — he's in favor of the Peru trade agreement. Biden — he hasn't done that in a while! — gets a chance to tell everyone that they're wrong. The WTO allowed us to shut down Chinese imports into the U.S. when they were shown unsafe — China did that to us, in fact, with problems with our poultry exports. We've always had the power, we just don't do it.

8:04 Energy, next. Obama gets asked about nuclear power and what should be done with the waste, with all the uproar about not storing it in Yucca Mountain. Obama says that we need to work for safe storage of waste, and much to Wolf's chagrin, refuses to answer what we should do about the waste now, not currently having a way to do that. It's actually a great line: he turns around what Wolf's saying, pointing out that a number of times Wolf has based a question on assuming we can't do something, and that he's running for President because he thinks we can. That's going to make a soundbite reel. Richardson, next, notes that he ran the site, but that the future of energy in America is renewable energy, not coal, oil, or nuclear.

8:11 Clinton gets asked about her comments about the "all-boys club" in politics, and how her campaign had mentioned that she'd gotten piled on, and her husband had said that "those boys were getting rough." Boy, is that the gimme of the year. Clinton: "they're not attacking me because I'm a woman, they're attacking because I'm ahead." Yup. And she gets all moony about how America's progress would allow a Latino, an African-American, and a woman to run for president, and how lucky she is — I'm pretty sure you could hear the national anthem in the background there, if you listened hard enough.

Wolf asks if anyone thinks that her being female is an issue, and apparently he was looking at Edwards (seeing as he asked, "are you looking at me?") Still, that's a trap of a question. Though Edwards basically answered with a "no," and pointed out that his disagreement with Clinton is over buying into a system that is inherently corrupt, he got booed for the attack. He's got to know that his "America has to know it has choices" line is no match for the national anthem. Clinton just got to look like a hero — an attack right now has to be fantastically nuanced to be successful, and his just wasn't.

8:23 It's time for artificial, pre-screened "questions from the people!" How nice that they involve us in debates. First up: a mom and her son, back from three tours in Iraq. They're concerned that he'll be recalled back, not to Iraq, but Iran. (Note: the son says "the troops need to come home now." My crystal ball says Bill O'Reilly will say tomorrow that he's not a real American. OK, OK, maybe he'll just think it.) Biden throws the recent Iran resolution under the bus, saying that it allowed Bush to take a step toward that, and the problem is that we shouldn't be seeking to escalate the issue. Clinton speaks next, as the only person on the stage who voted for that resolution, and states (again) that it did not give Bush any authorization. Edwards here has his chance to make up some for the boos — see, there's the buying into the system, I've got nothing else to say, make your own choices. Instead, he answers the question, which is perhaps wiser in the long run. He gets to be forceful about getting out of Iraq and not escalating Iran. If he can do anything, he can do forceful.

The next question is about private contractors, and the dramatic disparity between their income and soldiers' income, and whether that can end. The questioner also wishes Richardson a happy birthday, so of course, he gets the question first. He'd pull all contractors, which makes sense considering that he'd pull everybody. I'm not sure this lady's question actually got answered by anybody; everyone just went off on contractors instead.

The next questioner says that the PATRIOT Act has led to his being racially profiled and harrassed. Edwards goes first, speaking about how the PATRIOT Act is severely broken and leads to these injustices to people, and how we need to restore America's moral compass. Like I said, he can do forceful, and he sells that well. Kucinich points out that he didn't vote for PATRIOT because he read the bill. Zing. And that the two folks heading the polls voted for it. Zing. And that the first questioner's question never got answered, and what we do about the President running rampant, and says that we impeach him and the vice-president. Lots of applause on that one. Also a great line, about everyone changing their minds and admitting mistakes and his not having that problem: "Wouldn't it be nice to have a president that was right the first time around?" Biden takes his zeal down a notch, though; he notes that PATRIOT has nothing to do with racial profiling, and that racial profiling is illegal.

Next questioner asks about the border fence and how no terrorists have come from the southern border, and whether the two should be related. Richardson asks Kucinich to quit including him in these blanket criticisms of Congress, because he's a governor. Came across much funnier than I apparently can put it. Then he notes that as governor, he's had to deal with it directly, and a fence won't work. Talk to Mexico, increase patrol, penalize employers. And you have to have a path to legalization. Dodd gets to answer next, as he voted for the fence. He says that the fence isn't a total solution, and that we also need more enforcement.

8:38 Social Security — Obama and Hillary both answer with your standard talking points on how Bush and Republicans raid Social Security, and how we can pay for it with fiscal responsibility and/or closing tax loopholes. Obama takes a swipe at Hillary as well, on her moving the tax cap — that was probably too wonky a point in the first place for this debate. But he says it affects the top 6% of Americans, and that calling that a tax cut for the middle class is something he'd expect from a Romney or Giuliani. That got boos too, though interspersed with some clapping — can't put down the die-hards. Seems like folks may be a little tired of the direct attacks. Go fig. Who let Clinton pack the crowd?

Then abortion, and the picking of judges. (Having some internet hiccups here; sorry about that, folks.) Dodd talks about not liking litmus tests, but not letting Roe v. Wade be overturned. Biden, asked next, notes that the questioner's question wasn't answered, because the moderator reframed it, and he'd rather ask the questioner's question than the moderator's. (Way to go, Joe! Goodness, that was getting annoying.) The original question was on qualities of a Supreme Court Justice. No ideologues; someone who had lived life. Probably a woman. And they'd have to respect established law, which would include the 14th Amendment and the right to privacy, and that would mean Roe. Kucinich goes ahead and calls it a litmus test, but everyone else, though basically saying the same thing, shied away from the term and insisted instead on supporting the established right to privacy.

9:03 Clinton, can you unite the country? Clinton: of course I can. That question is officially way, way old. What answer are they expecting? Obama talks about how he thinks he can do it better, obviously, or he wouldn't be running. Biden and Richardson answer with their resumes. Well, at least we've mostly avoided that this time.

And money says this is the last question of the night — that's where they put all the inane ones, right? Clinton: do you prefer diamonds or pearls? Clinton opts for both. Biden interjects that he goes for diamonds. Aaaaand we're done.

I think the most striking thing about this debate is how it crystallized my dislike of CNN's debate coverage. But I'll try to stick to the point of how the candidates fared.

Clearly, Clinton came into this debate with the spectre of being attacked on all fronts for what looked like her prevarication. And it's tempting to say that she won the debate. But I'm really left with the impression that she didn't win the debate as much as the other frontrunners simply lost it. Though it's hard to tell with the audience so clearly in favor of Clinton, Edwards did have the one solid boo of the evening, as he made a poorly timed attack on Clinton immediately after she got the crowd on her side and ended up looking bad.

Obama fared even worse, between the on-the-fence-sounding answer to the immigrant driver's license, which after the big issue made of it over the past couple of weeks is a big negative (not to mention a faux pas that one wonders how could have ever happened; he must have known that question would be asked), and his own booing after comparing Clinton to the Republican presidential candidates, which may hurt him even more than it hurts Edwards considering that Edwards' message has at least been one he's had consistently for quite a long time as opposed to Obama's new attack.

Clinton will get a lot of credit for successfully defending herself against Obama and Edwards, but she didn't really have to play much defense — she didn't have to explain going from supporting the general idea of Spitzer's driver's license program to giving a one-word "no" answer on it today, and she got some softballs from the raising of the gender issue. And because the problems she's had weren't clearly brought to the forefront, Obama's and Edwards' attacks against her were perceived as less justified than they were in the last debate, and the two of them looked like they were attacking a frontrunner instead of leveling charges against a candidate that tried to have it both ways.

Kucinich got quite a few big cheers, and Biden got some zingers as well — on the whole, the down-tier candidates did very well in the debate. Of course, that will likely have little to no effect whatsoever on any earned media tomorrow. But I'm glad they're there — at the very least, they make for some great color commentary.

So Clinton comes out on top in the debate, and assuredly in the media tomorrow. From that perspective, we're actually getting to a point where these debates actually matter; this debate and Clinton's success in either defending or avoiding the accusations brought about her will shape how the media talk about the candidates for a good long while. I expect to see a lot of renewed talk about the inevitability of Clinton in the next few days. Save, of course, some new poll in Iowa or New Hampshire or just about anywhere else that will seize media attention instead.