So what you are saying is that she plays perfertly into the meme that the GOP been cultivating about us for 30 years now? But hey, she's got the most money, the support of A list bloggers by lacking of doing anything, the main stream media  - thats all that matters.

I believe, OBAMA WON this debate. EDWARDS is also a winner.

Hillary flip-flopped as usual.

Kucinich is a real progressive.

Richardson? He is looking for VP.

I should add ...

thats all that matters until the general.

I liked your analysis, Todd.  Edwards once again hit her hard, but I wish he would focus more on his vision and just ignore her.  I'm not sure he's scoring any points by exposing her penchant for non-answers.  His vision is the best for our class system.  And yes, we live in such a system, and it's getting worse.  He's set the agenda, and even if he isn't the nominee, he's brought forth important and potent issues we eventually will have to face.  Lack of healthcare, job and econonimic insecurity dehumanizing and demoralizing all of us.  Education is a friggin nightmare, with high schools producing multiple drop-outs instead of high powered, smart, socially responsible youth.  He's out best hope and I think he's losing it.  Sigh.  

Odd that both you and dday do not even mention what I found to be the most interesting and potentially long-running new focus in the race: the Bill Clinton request to have the Presidential papers concerning the First Lady sealed until 2012.  This goes right to the issue of her experience - what exactly was her influence as First Lady beyond failing to get Health Care passed?  Assuming it was less or less flattering than what she tries to make it to be would be covered by a seal to 2009, but his request/order to the Archives goes right beyond a potential 2nd term election.  Makes one wonder what exactly they are covering up.  No matter what you might want, or not want, to speculate about the details hidden, it exhibited clearly that a Clinton Presidency would mean 4 more years of secrecy.

Edwards came across as too angry.  He had some zingers, but his overall posture outweighed it all.   I think he lost a lot in this debate.  As negative as he came across, I doubt it played well across the country.

Obama was quite decent tonight.  His style is a bit wooden, a bit too deliberate, but I think he came across pretty well tonight, overall.  Better than in previous debates.  A positive debate for him.

Clinton:  If all they got out of it was some confusion about a driver's license answer at the very end, it was a good night for her.  She was badgered and attacked all night and did very well overall.  The fact that while others were attacking her she primarily went after the Bush administration is very significant, and was probably noticed very positively by most who watched.  

Richardson blunted Edwards and Obama's attacks a lot with his "This is getting way too personal vs. Hillary" moment.  As he pointed out these attacks have gone into unnecessary and damaging personality stuff, not issues.  His actual answers to posed questions were a bit too much "I am the only one qualified to be leading...." without a lot of meat.

Dodd:  Same as Richardson on the self-congratulatory style.  Not a lot of substance there, although he was the only candidate to disagree on DL's for Illegal Immigrants.  Not sure if he can score some points with a certain segment of the Democratic party.

Biden: Had the best one-liners.  Always dry.  Good evening for him, I thought.

Kucinich:  The UFO question was the weirdest moment of the night.  He did not answer it as snappy as I expected, given that he was probably asked this stuff a zillion times.  He did not really score with his answers on policies, I thought.  

All in all, a terrible debate thanks to horrendous questions - can we bring back YouTube?  Really, the aviation question, UFO's, what costume are you wearing, starting the night by trying to start a fight, the whole idea of lightening rounds?  And then followed by an even more vapid post-debate analysis.  Clear loser of the debate? MSNBC.

Actually, the answer Hilary gave was the correct one to the question asked.  The question was for her to explain why she said she could make sense of the license issuing and not did she support such issuing.  She did just that.  When asked if she supported such issuing, she said no.  Does not sound like double talk to me; but, more like people not listening to the questions and/or the answers.  This not listening seems to be especially true to the pundit class who are looking for issues and if they cannot find them, create false ones.  Surprisingly, even the reporters who are not suppose to be opinionated are carrying this theme of double talk.  I will probably be accused of being a Clinton supporter; but, I am not; however, I do believe in telling the truth about events.  Something that seems to be happening less and less these days.

As ever, the MSM joined with the forces of the also-rans, from Edwards to Obama, neither of whom is remotely as polished or qualified as Senator Clinton, to attack the clear front-runner.

Russert, Williams, Matthews and their coterie, obsessed with and hating all things Clinton for at least fifteen years now, desperately egged on the competetors to savage Senator Clinton.

They loathe the word "triangulation" (which is supremely effective in winning general elections, and why William Jefferson Clinton, with or without Ross Perot's 1992 candidacy, would have become the nation's 42nd Chief Executive); now they are attempting to create as a sword the new mantra of "doublespeak."

Yet that too implies not a weakness, but a brilliance in a candidate like Senator Clinton.  She knew fully well that the issue of drivers' licenses for illegal aliens in New York State would surface, and she deflected beautifully.  

She maintained her own opposition, while remaining sympathetic to the New York Governor who must deal with repercussions on immigration issues, those representing less diverse and complex populations cannot begin to fathom.

So, after excoriating all things Clinton for some two hours, with what has been aptly described as a collective "gang-bang" by opposition candidates on stage and off (the GOP contenders do little else but savage Senator Clinton, as if to suggest she, and not their mindless President GWB, has been running the affair of state these recent terrible years) and by a punditocracy bound and determined to prevent another Clinton presidency, where do we now find ourselves?

Well, the Obama and Edwards advocates are still trying to inform the rest of us why a two-year Senator from Illinois and an ex-Senator from North Carolina and failed vice-presidential candidate are better equipped to go to the voters next November than Senator Clinton.  

One would think that the past year, with all too many debates, and much campaigning and early primary states advertising, simply hadn't happened.  

With a fawning media and huge campaign coffers, Senator Obama never much cut it with the great bulk of Democratic constitutents.  He is yet, for all his intelligence, far too green for the Chief Executive's job at this stage.

Former Senator Edwards, for all his savvy and seemingly populist themes, appears to be a truly angry candidate, frustrated by his own lack of poll movement.  He incorrectly attributes this to "not taking it to Senator Clinton."  How long he will go on thinking this, even after his now inevitable early primary fizzles, is anyone's guess.

Presumably, rather than burning his bridges to the yet prohibitive favorite of Democratic presidential candidates, Governor Richardson, himself part of a very successful Clinton administration, chose to remain civil in this last debate.  Clearly he is thinking ahead, either to a vice-presidential spot, or to another key position in a second Clinton administration.

Senators Biden and Dodd come across, once again, as knowledgable and truly experienced, but alas, still not truly presidential timber.  

And Representative Kucinich, certainly prescient on many contemporary issues, has now been branded by the MSM as truly loony, with his embrace in the belief in UFOs, and just before Halloween.

Which of course brings us back to a dynamic that will not change.  If anything, collective gang-bangs on any leading candidate invariably solidifies that candidate's support, and reveals a desperation from the rivals.  

In Senator Clinton's case, it also reveals why, unlike the cases of former Mayor Giuliani, former Governors Huckabee and Romney, and even former Senator Edwards, she maintains strong support from where she has governed or helped to govern--from Arkansas to New York.

Should Senator Clinton emerge as the Democratic nominee and should former Mayor Giuliani serve as the GOP standard-bearer, I believe that the general election will not come down to a referendum not on the Clintons, as the MSM and many of current Democratic and Republican rivals would want it.  Nor will it be a "Daddy versus Mommy protecting us after 9/11" theme as former Mayor Giuliani's also fawning media acolytes would want it.

Indeed not.  The central question will become, in spite of rivals and punditocracy, why the Clinton governing style has been far preferred to the recent Bush one.  

And why Senator Clinton is considered most effective by citizens of the states who know her best--from Arkansas to New York, whereas where they know former Mayor Giuliani best, most of those citizens want nothing to do with him.

The so-called "America's Mayor," as depicted by the false images of 9/11, ought to have been first and foremost "New York City's Mayor."  When he clearly was not, his very reason to seek the United States Presidency ended, there and then.

Did anyone notice that the question for Obama was a soft ball -something like -"do you think your unusual name will be a problem?"  While they gave Hillary an incendiary one about immigration-  Way to go MSNBC-

All things considered, I thought Hillary did well, though not at her best.  Hillary always has a "youtube" type moment and this time she didn't, so in that respect, it wasn't good for her.  In the end, the only thing that matters is if it hurt her or helped her- it will take a week or so to see if it did any damage but I don't think it did (I thought the last debate might have hurt her and she went up after it, so it's hard to know how the general public sees it)  She needs to switch back to primary mode, though, instead of general election, if it does.