Texas Debate

Texas Debate Liveblogging.

Okay, so that's it. Even more clearly than in the last one-on-one debate, Barack wins a pretty even debate with a strong answer on the plagiarism/"silly season" issue. CNN replayed their "people meter" during one of the breaks and you can see Hillary's approval tanking in that moment—it was about ten solid minutes of Obamamania and in my opinion she never recovered from it. He also won the exchanges about how to take on John McCain. I was an Obama supporter early, of course, but I don't see how anyone undecided comes out of this debate deciding to vote for Clinton, and I'm guessing he peeled off some of her support, too.

9:40 pm: Rather than a question about the environment, which as we know is not an issue facing America in any way, we get a nonsense question: "Describe the moment in your life when you were tested the most." Obama talks about growing up with a single mother; Clinton, unless I misunderstood her, seems to reference Monica Lewinsky, which the crowd seems to wildly applaud. (?) That was very strange.

9:36 pm: Superdelegates. Clinton refuses to talk about superdelegates regardless of the fact that her entire strategy is banking on them. Obama says the primaries and caucuses should count for something, and ties it to the sense among the populace that government isn't listening to them because they've been "shut out." We're "tired out of a government that is dominated by the connected and the powerful; we want our government back."

9:32 pm: CNN tries another go at tripping Obama up with a question about earmarks. His answer is about his record on transparency. When it's Clinton's turn, she has nearly four times as much in earmarks, compared to St. John who says he has never asked for one. She drives at McCain too, which is a better look for her than attacking her Democratic opponent.

9:28 pm: Obama wound up going after McCain really hard in that answer—and probably as a consequence it was another really good sequence for him. He seemed like he'd already won the nomination. He gets in good lines about both the "100 Years" issue and the "I don't understand the economy" stuff.

9:21 pm: Another Iraq question, this one about McCain and his experience. Yet another question about how great the surge is.

9:16 pm: Now, back to the commander-in-chief thing. She's still saying "Ready on Day 1." Obama says he wouldn't be running if he didn't think he was prepared to be commander-in-chief; the crowd likes this. He segues quickly to Iraq, and lays a lot of emphasis on judgment. The crowd likes this too.

9:11 pm: New question: Clinton, are you saying that Obama is not qualified to be commander-in-chief? She refuses to answer the question and tries to go back to health care. The audience doesn't like it, and neither do the moderators, but she goes on, invoking the ghost of John Edwards in the process. Now Obama demands a rebuttal, and brings up the enforcement mechanism: "going after their wages." Now Clinton demands a rebuttal to the rebuttal. Obama takes a rebuttal to the third power. Obama wins, as usual, on the mandate thing, though Clinton pounds the table a bit.

The moderators have completely lost control of this debate.

9:07 pm: Obama also goes directly to the 1992 health care debacle, which I think was smart. I don't know if he was watching a clock or if he just got lucky, but CNN takes a break with Clinton's 1992 failure the last word.

9:03 pm: Clinton tries to recover with the universal health care issue. Barack starts talking specifics on universal health care, which once again cuts against this all-hat-and-no-cattle issue she insists on bringing up. Again, I ask: did she think he wouldn't? Does she really believe in what Matt Yglesias calls "the conservation of virtues," which is the claim that one cannot be both eloquent and knowledgeable? I think she does.

9:00 pm: Hillary gets nasty and the crowd boos. "That's not change you can believe in; that's change you can Xerox." I think she knew as she was saying it that it was the wrong thing to say after Barack had just been so positive, but she couldn't help using her prepared line.

8:57 pm: Obama the plagiarist? He's clearly been prepped for this one too. Good. "This is where we start getting into silly season in politics and I think people are discouraged by it." He uses the rest of his time to say he's been talking about specifics this whole time, and the crowd is really behind him as he answers. "We shouldn't be tearing each other time, we should be lifting the country up."

8:55 pm: Obama really nailed this question. A paraphrase: "She says that my millions of supporters, and editorial boards all across the country, etc etc, are all delusional." He laughs at this characterization just the right amount. He finishes off with a call to inspiration and a call to that political movement. His best answer of the night and an early contender for "moment of the debate." The crowd drowns out the next question.

8:54 pm: Obama starts listing his accomplishments. Did she think he wouldn't?

8:52 pm: Clinton: Do you really think Obama all hat and no cattle? She backs off from saying so, but then goes ahead and that she offers solutions. She says she has a record and some accomplishments—brings up the infamous MSNBC debacle in which an Obama proxy couldn't name one Obama accomplishment. (And here I thought this thing was going to be cordial all night.)

8:45 pm: Should the U.S. become a bilingual nation? Clinton says yes but English should still be the unofficial, unifying language. Obama says everyone needs to learn English so we can bind ourselves together as a country, but also says every student should learn a second language. Bashes No Child Left Behind, which the crowd likes as well.

8:40 pm: Obama jumps in with "What she said." Obama brings up the DREAM Act, which helps children who have grown up in the States to go to college; he gets a pop for this too.

8:36 pm: Border fence. Clinton (and Obama too) voted for the border fence—will you finish the fence, or will you stop the fence? She does a nice spin move here and blames it all on Bush. "I would listen to the people who live along the border."

8:35 pm: Immigration. "Would you consider stopping raids on undocumented immigrants?" Clinton says "Yes, except in egregious situations." She would introduce a path to citizenship in the first 100 days of her presidency. Obama takes most of what Clinton said as his base and then tries to go forward. Let's tone down the rhetoric, he says. And let's fix the INS and let's reduce the fees and legal expenses that keep immigrants from applying for citizenship. And let's get Mexico on board and start producing jobs there—gets in a hit on Bush in the process.

8:30 pm: Clinton pulls a "What Barack said" before she gets to her first difference: the foreclosure moratorium and the freezing of interest rates. CNN tries to interrupt Clinton, but Clinton stays in control. That question was a waste of time as no differences were advanced.

8:25 pm: John King asks how a President Obama would be different than a President Clinton on matters of the economy. He gets a lot of crowd pops on eat-the-rich stuff: stop giving tax cuts to companies that outsource, repeal the Bush tax cuts and reduce/eliminate taxes on the elderly. "We need to view trade deals through the lens of Main Street, not Wall Street." He hits the green economy issue. He says he and Clinton, and the now-fallen candidates, generally agreed -- the Democrats have a shared agenda. The question is how do we get it done -- and here's where we need "a working coalition for change." Hits Clinton with the special interest and lobbying issue in the handover.

8:20 pm: Clinton is trying to hang a lot on this distinction about which conditions she'll talk to our nation's "enemies," but it seems to me that she's met Obama nearly 90% of the way from the place where this debate started. The audience likes her knocking on Bush, and Chelsea's in the audience tonight, looking very proud of her mom.

8:14 pm: Univision hits us with a Cuban embargo question. Will Clinton meet with Raul Castro? Clinton says "she hopes so," which doesn't necessarily mean "yes"—Cuba has to prove it's willing to democratize first. "I would not meet with him until there was evidence that change was happening." Obama says he will, but ties it to the same sorts of "evidence"—which he calls "preparation"—but says that the U.S. needs to talk to its enemies as well as its friends. He also calls for the loosening on the embargo, including travel restrictions and renumeration, but not immediate normalization. The host tries to call this a flip-flop—I hate CNN—but Obama explains that the failure of the embargo policy is real and that this is how we need to deal with it.

8:10 pm: Barack leads with the "friends" live we've heard before, before leaping into economic issues: foreclosures, health care, outsourcing. The war, and its costs. "We've both offered detailed proposals to deal with these problems." Trying to get out in front of the all-hat-and-no-cattle issue. "Washington is where good ideas go to die." Obama quotes Barbara Jordan -- "People want an American as good as its promise" -- and the crowd seems to like that.

8:05 pm: No rules! Stay on point and don't take so long. Clinton goes first and begins with the story about her first political job, registering voters in South Texas, dropping names of prominent Texas female politicians in the bargain: Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards. So far it's "nice Hillary," not "kill you to death, this-is-the-fun-part Hillary"—but it's only the first few minutes. She offers a lifetime of experience and proven results—she's sticking with that message.

8:00 pm: The debate is beginning now. It's interesting that it's partly sponsored by Univision, the Spanish-language channel—should be a lot of questions about immigration and the Hispanic community tonight. It's also hosted at the University of Texas at Austin, which you'd expect should inform the questioning as well.