Wrap-Up

I thought this was a mostly dull debate, and under the circumstances that’s good for Obama. Overall, though, this is a good format for Hillary Clinton and she, as usual, did well on the health care debate whereas I thought he was more impressive on the diplomatic and foreign policy issues. Everyone seems to agree that her effort to press the bogus plagiarism issue didn’t work out well.

Bottom line, if she was still the front-runner, this would have counted as a clear Clinton win — Obama had some good moments, but her ability to rattle off policy details on the fly really comes through whereas Obama needs to pause to think. But she’s not the front-runner anymore, and it’s hard to see anything she did to make up lost ground.