Cleaning up after the Myrtle Beach debate

The Associated Press

It wasn't all smiles in South Carolina.

Featured Topic | Posted 43 weeks 4 days ago

Cleaning up after the Myrtle Beach debate

The Democrats' Monday night debate in Myrtle Beach had substance and spirit. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama traded barbs over their records. John Edwards pleaded for attention. "This kind of squabbling -- how many children is this going to get health care? How many people are going to get education because of this? How many kids are going to get to go to college because of this?" Edwards said to cheers from the crowd.

But the Democratic contenders did discuss their plans to stimulate the economy, reform health care, and withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.

What did you think of the debate? Did the candidates sacrifice discussion of the issues in favor of personal attacks? Or was it precisely the sort of debate the Democrats needed?

Ben likes: Debate drunkblogging -- the wrap!

Stephen Green/Vodkapundit

If tonight’s debate was any small indicator of how the Democratic nominee will run in the general election, then I’d say the Republican nominee has some small chance of winning. And that’s no small feat, given that tonight Clinton and Obama were only fighting over South Carolina.

Joel likes: Obama was infuriating, inspiring

Eve Fairbanks/The New Republic

One thing I do like about this debate is that its freewheeling, hot emotion better reveals the candidates' various poles, rather than allowing them to stay relentlessly on message and project uncomplicated selves. Take Obama -- the last hour and a half has captured for me both why I find him frustrating and why I admire him.

Early in the debate, he sounded like it was Hillary's world and he just lives in it. Too many of his responses began with "Hillary, that's not what I said," which is both huffy in style and bereft in substance, since it turns the argument to semantics and quibbles over quotations that can't be fact-checked up on the stage, rather than what everybody actually meant.