This Is How I'd Rank The Candidates Performances Tonight....

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. Hillary
2. Edwards
3. Biden
4. Obama
5. Kucinich
6. Richardson
7. Dodd
8. Gravel


Hillary, to me, looked the most presidential, most prepared, and most serious.

Edwards had a lot of good answers, highlighted differences between himself and Obama/Clinton well.

Biden was the shocker for me, I LOVED him tonight, he was forceful when necessary, and probably was the most truthful with his answers ranging from everything from the funding bill to Darfur to Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Obama was solid, but flubbed that answer on veterans going to hospitals. I don't think he hurt himself in this debate, but I don't think he helped himself much.

Kucinich had the best red meat to throw, and threw it well.

Richardson was up and down, as usual, probably slipping down into the Dodd/Gravel/Kucinich third tier.

Dodd was pointless.

Gravel was annoying.

[Colobo]

1. My scoring

1) Hillary
2) Obama
3) Biden
4) Edwards

The rest doesn't count.

[jillan]

2. Wow - YOU have Biden as #3

You usually give me a hard time about him.

:)!!

[ElizabethDC]

3. Yours is the same as mine

I like your Hillary and Barack pic. Here's another good one I found:


They'd make a great team!

[Colobo]

10. Wonderful. I love the ticket.

[elocs]

18. Interesting body language with both leaning toward each other.

They do seem comfortable with one another.

[ElizabethDC]

19. Yep

they're much friendlier with each other than I had imagined that they would be.

[Auntie Bush]

23. Wow! First woman and first Black. What a combo!

Leave it to the Dems!

[proudleftists]

6. Sen Obama

My rating's for tonight's debate:
1. Obama
2. Edwards
3. Hillary

Biden was bad, but Wolf was the worst possible choice for
moderator. 

[Auntie Bush]

24. I don't agree with anyhthing you said. n/t

[Auntie Bush]

22. That would be my take.

[illinoisprogressive]

4. disagree. i'd put hillary 5th, edwards 3rd and obama 1st.

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. 5th?

come on.

Who's second and fourth?

[rubus]

13. Obama

Despite a few slips, Obama offers the best hope for winning the White House.

Hillary would be fine if she was not a Clinton. Old scandals are the weapon that can defeat her, and sooner or later, Obama and/or Edwards will have to trash her.

If Obama and Edwards can not whip Hillary then neither deserves to be President.

[chimpymustgo]

7. 3 way tie - Hillary, Edwards Obama. Hillary was strong on style, but the "safer" answer

was a reminder of her DLC-ness.

Obama singed Edwards with the "4 1/2 years late" rejoinder. But, as others have noted, Obama rambles in platitudes and spin, and though he was much better tonight than last time, still has to put some meat on those (attractive) bones.

Edwards, very passionate, with details about what he wants to do in the world. The IWR continues to haunt. But he leaves the impression he'd a be strong force for good in this country and the world.

Biden, very forceful, but I didn't agree with everything he said. Glad he brought up public financing for campaigns - yeah - Mr. Credit Card Industry.

Kucinich - I'm so glad he's on the stage, saying what he's saying.

Richardson, uneven - and annoying. Went on way after he'd made a point. "As Governor, this is what I did...." got real old.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

8. My ranking

1) Edwards
2) Biden
3) Obama
4) HRC
5) Dodd

[ddeclue]

15. I agree with this. n/t

[ripple]

9. My top five:

1. Obama
2. Hillary
3. Biden
4. Dodd
5. Edwards

[jefferson_dem]

12. agree with yours.

[bigdarryl]

11. you have Biden behind Clinton you must not have watched the same debate i did Biden was...

head and shoulders over Hillary.

[jillan]

17. Hillary is too busy trying to please everyone

Biden doesn't give a sh*t.
And that's why I like him, even tho I don't agree with him all of the time.

I'd rather have a President that stands up for what he believes in, then one that plays politics.

[Tejanocrat]

14. Kucinich, Edwards, Dodd, Obama, Hillary, Biden, Gravel, (Ron Paul), Richardson, (Wolf Blitzer)

[question everything]

16. Excellent. Agree with everything (nt)

[elocs]

20. I am impressed with your honesty, Magic Rat, placing your candidate 4th.

So often you see most supporters placing their own favorite candidate 1st or very high. I didn't see it, so I have no idea who is correct. Lots of big differences in rankings.

[THUNDER HANDS]

25. I don't get the point in rooting

I like Obama, sure, but I'll be supporting whoever gets the nomination. And all the guys (+ Hillary) up on stage are better than any republican. I don't see the need to pump Obama up when I thought he did fine, but others were better. I'm sure there'll be days when he outperforms them, it's just today wasn't one of those.

I'm also a political junkie and I love evaluating this stuff. It's such a guilty pleasure. But I think everyone did fine, for the most part. We have a good crop of candidates this year.

[Egnever]

31. Well said

if we had this Field last time we would have been saved from bush. This Field is almost too good.I am going to thoroughly enjoy this primary season

[LBJDemocrat]

21. Biden won

1. Biden
2. Edwards
3. Clinton
4. Kucinich
5. Gravel
6. Dodd
7. Obama
8. Richardson

[AtomicKitten]

26. I thought the debate was spectacular!

The format was absolutely brilliant!

Hillary and Edwards kicked ass, both prepared and aggressive. Obama was hesitant on policy but soulful on social issues. I thought for a moment Edwards might offer to perform a sex act on Obama; what was that about? Biden had a good night. Kucinich was smart and sincere. I thought Richardson did well, although some critics disagree. Dodd was there. And Gavel was crazy uncle Rupert at Thanksgiving with some moments of brilliant clarity.

I'm in the midst of a Debate Dinner with friends and we were all very proud of the field. If we could roll them into one candidate, that would be the perfect candidate, or Al Gore could just run. Hee-hee.

Later.

[emilyg]

27. I agree with you.

[mckeown1128]

28. I have it as

Obama
Edwards
Biden
Clinton


Biden's answers sucked but he had a great style and a commanding approach to answering

[Anaxamander]

29. Biden kicked ass

1. Biden
2. Edwards
3. Hillary
4. Kucinich
5. Obama

[Hippo_Tron]

30. Hillary and Biden gave the best performances...

Hillary was, IMO, in control of the stage. Granted she had more speaking time than Biden and got to sit center stage. But she did a great job calling out Wolfie on his stupid hypotheticals.

Biden had less speaking time than Hillary but he gave some damn good answers.

Richardson gave some good answers and some bad ones. He obviously has a very good understanding of the problems that we face, but his solutions are sometimes lame. We're going to need more leverage over China than boycotting the Olympics.

Obama, who I'm still leaning toward supporting at this point, needs to spend some time at debate camp. He still isn't comfortable on stage and he's the only one who speaks with frequent pauses and frequent uses of "um" and "uh". He also fumbled the VA question, which Richardson did much better on.

Edwards gave the best answer on Iran but I didn't notice much else from him.

[PurityOfEssence]

32. Give or take this or that, you're pretty much dead on

Hillary was great. (A couple of cutaways when others were speaking showed some crabbiness, but she was solid and dead on. She also took Wolfie to task for hypothetical questions that were more than just loaded, and that's long overdue when dealing with the MSM.) Bear in mind, I'm an Edwards partisan and have many problems with her. I also have big questions about her electability, especially her negatives, but she was very engaging; perhaps that's not as big a problem as I've thought.

Edwards did well, but he, like most of them, didn't so much answer the questions posed as the questions he wanted to have posed. Nonetheless, he was solid and engaging.

None of them really answered the questions as much as they answered the questions they wanted to have asked of them, and Dodd was really guilty of this.

Biden was certainly the surprise; he was clearheaded, forthright and answered questions more directly than anyone except Kucinich or Gravel.

Obama was all over the place, and that's not a good thing for an unknown quantity like him. His interplay with Edwards was interesting, but he avoided answering questions directly and went off into tangents that left me bored. He had an interesting dynamic of being truly engaging with star power, but after a sentence or so became less exciting than Kerry. Some of the cutaways to the audience really showed this.

Kucinich was focused and true to his beliefs. His attacks on medicine-for-money were undeniably prescient: the system as it is just doesn't work and we need socialized medicine. Sadly, the country simply isn't ready for this. He also didn't answer questions directly all the time and went off into his talking points far too quickly. Then again, he's deeply moral and correct on most points, even if he doesn't seem to get the ramifications of his actions. I love this guy.

Dodd was great at times, but was one of the worst in not answering the questions. I was hoping to see more of the plain-spoken reality that he's good at, but he wandered off so many times and avoided the questions at hand so much that it just turned me off.

Here's a clue to politicians: ANSWER THE DAMNED QUESTION! When people skew it off to talk about totally unrelated crap, it makes most of us gag.

Richardson was a disaster. Was he drunk? He certainly seemed like it. (I actually mean that; he was slurring his speech, lost in midstream thought and careening about.) This was the biggest shock of the night. Here's a guy who truly has a chance to break out from the pack, but he fluffed questions, rambled off into pre-prepared schtick that was unrelated to the questions asked and just seemed oblivious. My jaw was on the floor.

Gravel was a doddering nincompoop, although he admittedly didn't get much of a chance. His was a truly sad performance, much as what he says is decent.

Quite good theatre all in all. Actually REALLY good theatre.

In my humble arrogant opinion:

BIG WINNERS: Clinton and Biden

WINNERS: Edwards, and for moral clarity, Kucinich, much as I think he's impractical.

SURVIVORS: Obama (hardly a bad showing) and Dodd (at times great, at times dreadful)

LOSERS: Richardson (incoherent, clinging to prepared text, flat-out oblivious) Gravel (um...why?)

What fine sport!

[question everything]

33. Excellent analysis

Yes, this is what politicians do: they promote their ideas regardless of the question. And this is why Blitzer ended up talking the most. He did what he promised to do: nudge the candidates to answer the question and finally left them. So when many DUers here are upset with Blitzer for cutting their candidates in mid sentence.. well they deserved it.

This is another reason why Clinton and Biden did the best; they did not stick with a scripted message the way the others did: Edwards, Dodd and Richardson.

Like you, I really want to support Edwards again, the way I did in 2004 but would like him to show more flexibility. Demanding that Clinton drops to her knees, pound her chest and say "mae culpa" is getting to be old and tiresome.