If Thursday night’s debate was a movie, it would be American Gangster: you’re super excited for it, everything points to carnage and death and fantastic-ness, you’re pretty sure you have a classic on your hands. You got two stars at the top of their game set to duke it out on screen. But what d’ya get instead? You get an occasionally meandering, mildly disappointing entertainment product featuring a lack of fireworks— aside from a few choice scenes, eg, man getting head blown off in the middle of a street in the movie and Hillary flailing hopelessly on her Iraq vote.
Similarly, and much to my chagrin, the debate did not start with a man being set on fire. The motley crew of celebrities in attendance—Pierce Brosnan! George Constanza! Louis Gosset, Jr.! Stevie Wonder!—certainly upped the enjoyment quotient in a way that dead people couldn’t have (probably), but it wasn’t what you’d call electrifying. We were served up a fairly congenial, wonkish debate that featured far less acrimony than was forecast. Hell, Obama even pulled out Hillary’s chair at the end.
The candidates played it safe to a fault. Moderated by the bearded wonder himself, Wolf “and they are so black” Blitzer, the debate posed the more pointed questions to Hillary. The questions referenced, among other things, her troublesome husband, her quasi-dynastic pursuit of the presidency and her vote on Iraq, the latter of which really question on the poor judgment specter that has haunted her throughout the race.
As in a fight where few punches being thrown, there was no clear winner. Nobody made any glaring errors. But the decision has to go to Obama, for a few reasons.
First, after a near-constant barrage of criticism— justified, I think— for his emphasis on style over substance, Obama proved an adept handler of facts and figures. The exchange on healthcare was the most wonkish I’ve seen in the primaries yet, both candidates painstakingly listing the intricacies of their respective plans. Those who tuned in for substantive discussions of policy were rewarded. Those who tuned in for a bloodbath, or fun, were disappointed. I will go on record as favoring Democratic wonkishness to anything like the vigorous Ronald Reagan verbal fellatio that was Wednesday night’s Republican debate. I mean honestly, guys.
Second, Obama just seemed presidential. Gone was the occasionally halting nature of previous debate performances, where he frequently would stumble through answers. Here he seemed fully in command of his arguments and the crowd and Wolf— and it suited him well.
Third, any remaining questions about ill feeling between the two, like Obama’s snub of Hillary at the State of the Union, were put resoundingly to rest. They presented a united Democratic front, and both deftly avoided Wolf’s inquisition about the so-called ‘Dream Ticket,’ whether it be Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama.
Fourth, the main thrust of Obama’s campaign— “What’s at stake is whether we are looking forward or looking backward, whether we are looking at the future or at the past,” as he put it— came across loud and clear.
Finally, and most importantly, Iraq was back on center stage last night, and it was here that Obama scored the most points. Hillary was rightly put on the spot for her vote to authorize force in Iraq, and no amount of equivocating or bobbing and weaving around the truth could diminish the fact that she was wrong, embarrassingly so, on the most important foreign policy decision since Vietnam— and probably the most important vote of her life. Obama was able to, for the most part, let her do his dirty work for him, as she effectively impaled herself scrambling to explain away her disastrous decisions. Obama also got perhaps the biggest applause line of the night, and certainly the most devastating, when he noted that while it’s important to be ready on day one, it’s also “important to be right on day one.” Ouch.
Hillary also had her moments— most notably her own huge crowd-pleaser, “It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush, and it might take another Clinton to clean up after the second Bush”— but she continued to demonstrate a few troubling traits.
Most troubling, and broadly symptomatic of how she has carried out her campaign, is her inability to hold an unwavering position on anything. Identity politics is a case in point. She wants to be judged as a person and not as an historically unique candidate, on the one hand. Yet she brings her gender up continully as a prime example of change. Bill is another problem area. She wants to be judged on her own merits. Yet wants credit for all of the good (or at least well-remembered) aspects of the Bill presidency. She doesn’t think she should be judged (neither she nor her opponent!) by the endorsements she has received or not received. Yet she won’t let you forget that three nonTed Kennedys have offered her their endorsements. She wants to be the fresh face of change. Yet she wants also to trumpet her inside-the-boy’s-club-style experience. The list goes on. She wants her cake and she wants to gobble it too, all the time, which ain’t doing her any favors at this point, especially when contrasted with somebody who for the most part, sticks to his guns.
My impression was that, while Hillary might be riding higher in the polls right now, her time has passed. The prevaricating, the vacillating, the triangulating— it all seems so, I don’t know, desperate, so 1990s. Hope will trump desperation every time.
Tags: hillary clinton, los angeles