Dem Debate in Nevada: Clinton is Back, Actually She Never Went Away

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 5:26 AM on November 16, 2007.

This post, written by Steve Benen, originally appeared on The Carpetbagger Report

A couple of weeks ago, after a Democratic debate in Philadelphia, the media hype was unmistakable: Hillary Clinton had “stumbled.” She was “off her game.” She “waffled,” got “tripped up,” and “lost her momentum.” By any reasonable measure, all of this was wildly overstated — it might have been Clinton’s least impressive debate performance, but she wasn’t that bad. News outlets just needed something to talk about, and the “Clinton’s-post-debate-trouble” narrative was easy.

Similarly, those same outlets are reporting on last night’s debate from Nevada with a new narrative: “Clinton is back!” Actually, she never really went away, but apparently that’s not important right now.

To be sure, Clinton had a much better night than in Philadelphia. Two weeks ago, she was on the defensive; last night, she was on the offensive. When Barack Obama and John Edwards would challenge her, she’d return fire.

In just the first few minutes, for example, Obama said, “[W]hat the American people are looking for right now is straight answers to tough questions. And that is not what we’ve seen out of Senator Clinton on a host of issues.” Instead of defending herself, Clinton struck back: “Well, I hear what Senator Obama is saying, and he talks a lot about stepping up and taking responsibility and taking strong positions. But when it came time to step up and decide whether or not he would support universal health care coverage, he chose not to do that. His plan would leave 15 million Americans out.”

Obama, of course, insisted that wasn’t true, but the result was a substantive back-and-forth on healthcare policy. It was as if CNN organized a debate, and by accident, a debate broke out.

Soon after, Edwards took a few shots, and Clinton again returned fire: “You know, Senator Edwards raised health care again. When Senator Edwards ran in 2004, he wasn’t for universal health care. I’m glad he is now. But for him to be throwing this mud and making these charges, I think, really detracts from what we’re trying to do here tonight.”

What makes this interesting, I suppose, is that it was different. Clinton was no longer trying to stay above the fray; she was mixing it up. The media, apparently, was impressed.

But there was a limit on the audience’s tolerance for intra-party criticism. Last night we heard something unusual: booing.

This, for example, was a striking moment:

EDWARDS: Senator Clinton defends the system, takes money from lobbyists, does all those things. And my point is simply that people have — (chorus of boos) — no, wait a minute. Voters have those choices. Voters have those choices. They deserve to know that they have those choices and that there are, in fact, differences between us. But I think every one of us should be held to the same standard.

Much later in the debate, Obama and Clinton were clashing on Social Security and payroll taxes. Clinton suggested a change would lead to “a $1 trillion tax increase.” Obama wouldn’t stand for it.

OBAMA: And you know, this is the kind of thing that I would expect from Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani — (laughter, boos, cheers, applause) — where we start playing with numbers — we start playing with numbers in order to try to make a point. (Cheers, applause.) And we can’t do that. No, no, no, no, no. This is — this is — this is too important. This is too important for us to pretend that we’re using numbers like a trillion dollar tax cut instead of responsibly dealing with a problem that Judy asked for, and she said she wants a specific answer. And that’s what I provided.

For all the talk that Democrats expect the leading candidates to go after one another, this audience seemed to be saying the opposite.

Perhaps more so than in any other debate, the crowd seemed decidedly pro-Clinton. In response to a question about playing the so-called “gender card,” Clinton said, “Well, I’m not exploiting anything at all. I’m not playing, as some people say, the gender card here in Las Vegas. I’m just trying to play the winning card, and I understand well that people are not attacking me because I’m a woman. They’re attacking me because I’m ahead.”

It was pretty routine rhetoric, but the crowd erupted. I’m still not sure why.

Other observations from my notes:

* Obama has really grown as a candidate in recent months. In the early debates, he’d respond to every question with generalities, painting every issue with a broad brush. There were a lot of “ums” and “uhs,” as he collected his thoughts. He’d start almost every sentence with, “Look…” Not anymore. Last night, I thought he missed a couple of opportunities, but he demonstrated a lot of policy expertise. Gone are the generalities; Obama backed his opinions up with details.

* You know who had a good night? Dennis Kucinich. In the other debates, I could practically recite his soundbites along with him as he robotically repeated them for the 400th time. Last night, he actually sounded like a human being. When Wolf Blitzer noted that he was the only person on the stage to vote against the Patriot Act, he didn’t hesitate: “That’s because I read it.” He even mixed it up, effectively, with Edwards on China policy. It was the first time this year when I was marginally glad Kucinich was on the stage.

* Bill Richardson said at one point that human rights are, at times, more important than American national security. That probably wasn’t a smart thing to say. Chris Dodd followed up with the right answer: “Well, obviously national security, keeping the country safe. When you take the oath of office on January 20th, you promise to do two things, and that is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and protect our country against enemies both foreign and domestic. The security of the country is number one, obviously, yes, all right?”

* If most of the attacks were geared towards Clinton in Philly, most of the attacks were geared towards Edwards last night. He can reasonably make the case that this was a positive development — he’s important enough to go after.

* The last question of the night was whether Clinton preferred diamonds or pearls. I like the occasional off-beat query, but c’mon. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

* Watching the Dems debate is a reminder of just much more impressive these guys are than the Republican presidential field. These seven knew policy, cared about details, and engaged in substantive back-and-forth discussions, without mindless soundbites. If Dems are the New England Patriots, the Republicans are a Pop Warner team.

Ultimately, last night was largely forgettable. There were no huge mistakes, no knock-out punches. It’s hard to imagine the debate changed anyone’s mind about who to support.

That said, CNN was truly abysmally bad. I’ll tackle that one in the next post.

So, what’d you think?

Tagged as: clinton, obama, election08, biden, edwards, dodd, kucinich, richardson

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.