Keep an eye on this one. Hillary made a mistake last night and Barack has pounced on it today with a press release which Chuck Todd says "boxes" Hillary in:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/...
As for the debate, I suggest to you that when you compare the manner and prescence of the "Big 3", there is only one candidate who looks, sounds, and commands the stage like a President. Whenever Barack spoke, with Edwards and Hillary looking up to him from his right, he spoke eloquently and substantively, with a calm touch to his voice that simply conveys a gravitas the others can not match. Period. Barack Obama's body language and speech is absolutely platinum.
John Edwards was aggressive, yes, but Obama left a nasty mark on him with his "You're 4 years too late" line. John Edwards, who is a good man, was pretty much forced to spend the rest of the debate begging, rhetorically, for forgiveness. Watch that thing again and see how many times Edwards complimented Barack or outright admitted "He was right. I was wrong." I admire John Edwards for admitting that, but it can't excatly help his cause to be forced to do so.
As for Hillary...
I'm not surprised that James Carville declared her the winner, and she did a good job turning every question into an opportunity to throw a punch at Bush/ Cheney (who need punching to be sure). Yet I believe the informed viewers of the event perceive how transparently she avoids questions. "Please don't ask me about Iraq any more, Wolf, it's George Bush's fault... and whatever you do, can't we drop this whole NIE thing".
Other than James Carville, people tended to see this thing as going Obama's way.
From Slate:
Barack is back: Barack Obama had a strong night, especially compared to his lackluster first debate performance. When John Edwards challenged Obama's leadership abilities by charging that Obama only meekly opposed the recent Iraq funding legislation, Obama threw an elbow. "The fact is, is that I opposed this war from the start," he said looking coolly at Edwards, who voted to authorize the war. "So, you're about four and a half years late on leadership on this issue." The senator then threw another elbow, suggesting that Edwards shouldn't politicize the war issue. It was such a deft performance you almost didn't notice that Obama was himself politicizing the issue, albeit in his own high-minded way.
Later, Obama held his own in another exchange with Edwards over health-care policy. In time, the fact-checkers may find flaws in his arguments, but since Obama has been criticized—by Edwards among others—for lacking substance, his forceful case for his own plan helped to rebut the weightlessness charge.
And he didn't stop there. Obama was telling lots of people what to do. He took on CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer, who asked the candidates to raise their hands to signify whether they thought English should be the official language in America. "This is the kind of question that is designed precisely to divide us," said Obama, interrupting the flow of the debate. In the first debate, he seemed tentative when asked how he would respond to a hypothetical terrorist attack. Not tonight. He was clear that he'd assassinate Osama Bin Laden if given the chance, even if it meant killing innocent civilians.
MSNBC poll - 15600 votes approx. so far
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
CNN poll
http://www.cnn.com/...