Live Blog Part I

They are introducing the candidates and I hear it is really important to appeal to the Hispanic Americans. As I am a wine-drinking Obama supporter I am fulfilling the stereotype as I write this.

We are in the LBJ Library. The candidates are sitting next to each other so it will be interesting if

Hills mentions Barbara Jordon and its her birthday today. There we go she is mentioning Ann Richards. She wants us to think that she is just like them. Why doesn't she mention Molly Ivins? Oh, because before she died she told the world that she wouldn't vote for Hillary.

Doh. Got to make dinner now and pause the debate on the old DVR. So no more live blogging. Apparently the comments are down over at Wonkette so no live blogging there either.

UPDATE THE MORNING AFTER:

Obama could have zinged her more and shouldn't have fell into the whole Health Care debate with her. I say this because he was put into the defensive stance a bit and I think that he should have been steering the debate, not Hillary. Its all good though.
The bottom line is that she had her chance to make something happen with Health Care and she messed up. Obama did mention the reasons why she failed which was good and reinforced the idea that you can have great ideas, but if you first have to change the system where "good ideas go to die".

I think that is a universal opinion that Hillary's Xeroxing comment deserved the boos she got and that it was the classic misfire of attack dog politics. I have heard people talk about that Mark Penn or her husband may have put her up to it. She is a big girl running for President of the United States. Ultimately, no one was twisting her arm or had a gun to her head, she should have had the good judgment that that would backfire. This should have occurred to her before the debate, but it should have been crystal clear to her when Obama made a reasonable explanation that his campaign chair suggested he use the phrase and the audience seemed to accept that. If she was thinking on her feet, like a president should, she should have agreed with him that silly season does happen during campaigns. She would have given him a minor point, but she would have avoided looking petty and desperate.

Hubby thought that Obama should have come up with the equivalent of "There you go again!" but I thought that what he needed to do is hold his own, look presidential, and articulate that he is not the empty suit, but a thoughtful and experienced candidate which he did. Clinton needed to trip Obama up and somehow drive home that he is the empty suit that her campaign keeps telling everyone. She did not accomplish that. The major news cycle has her saying something that got her the only boos of the evening and her being conciliatory and almost valedictory at the end. I think she had to do something to make up for that unnecessary xerox comment, and she did it by what someone on Wonkette referred to as "xeroxing John Edwards"