The Morning After The Debate

Chris Dodd was the winner, declares Mark Coffey, who grades all candidates. (Decision ’08)

Obama soars, Hillary bores, says Mickey Kaus, who also notes that AP’s Nedra “The Prophet” Pickler wrote about the debate in the past tense before it had started. (Kausfiles)

And the planet, what about the planet? “Now, consider for a moment the hypocrisy here: we Americans are being told by the left and the media that support them that we all need to make sacrifices to prevent an imminent cataclysm caused by a planet that is warming due to our own misdeeds. Yet, these four “green” Senators couldn’t fly from the same place to the same place on the same plane to conserve energy and cut planet-threatening emissions?” (Newsbusters)

“A huge success because few Americans saw the 8 candidates who showed up. The Democrats cleverly chose the least-watched cable TV news station – MSNBC, which hoped to use the debate to double its audience so that it could finally draw half of Shep Smith’s audience. I was among the estimated 299.6 million Americans who did not watch the debate. That of course does not stop me from blogging about it.” (Don Surber)

Glenn Reynolds followed Gravel-mania in real time. (Instapundit)

“Unexciting Democratic Primary Debate Shows Promising And Unpromising Candidates” (Moderate Voice)

“Bill Richardson largely lived up to his reputation as the Democrat who induces the faintest gag reflex in libertarians.” (David Weigel @ Reason’s Hit and Run)

A quick report card (Anonymous Liberal)

Progressive Historians liveblogged with real-time commentary from a historical perspective.

The moment of the evening came when “Edwards and Obama totally dodged an emotional question asking about their response to a hypothetical terrorist attack by al Qaeda on two American cities. Hillary stepped up and clearly answered. Edwards and Obama reinforced the image of Democratic weakness, and Hillary crushed it.” (TigerHawk)

Just as expected: “This early in the season, with so many candidates, none of them were able to respond to any of the debate questions in enough detail to give us an idea of anything but their campaign personalities.” (Cadillac Tight, who also makes some predictions)

“19 months until the ’08 elections? 19 more months of this? Ye gods…” (QandO)

Some praise for Brian Williams as moderator from Sister Toldjah, who liveblogged the whole thing.

Quote of the night: “Those people frighten me.” (Mike Gravel; see the video HERE)

A Very Good Night for Clinton (Taylor Marsh)