Some jumbled and probably biased comments on tonight's debate.

First, points for the format.  I don't think it was particularly fair to exclude Kucinich or Gravel (or Dodd or Biden, who would have been excluded had they not dropped out); it doesn't fit with the principles of the Democratic Party, the principle of an open debate, or the principle of fairness.  That said, it had the tremendous advantage of allowing for a much more in-depth exchange between the candidates.  I don't much like these debates because they're not debates - they are a drawn-out process of Miss America-like interviews, and we all know where that gets us. (Sorry - I know that's old, but I giggle every time.)  This one still had some of the usual question-dodging and platitude-spewing, but there was more of an opportunity for the candidates to respond to each other's claims and draw a clearer contrast between themselves.

Overall I saw no clear victors, although the press seems to have come down somewhat on Obama's side (see pretty favorable coverage, depicting Hillary on the defensive to some extent, at ABC, the Times, and MSNBC).Hillary had definite strong points - a good laugh line with "My feelings are hurt," and a clearly articulated argument that experience is a prerequisite for change - one that the other candidates (particularly Obama, for whom it's most important) did not answer directly. I loved Edwards' defense of why the insider/outsider dynamic in politics is personal for him; he was forceful and compelling, though it may be too little, too late. I also really loved the tirade about Hillary as an agent of the status quo, but for strictly partisan reasons. During the bickering about change versus experience, Obama had some good moments, stepping back from the fray and urging the candidates not to distort each other's records, which allowed him to look like the bigger man, acquire a bit of gravitas, and illustrate the kind of politics that his campaign promises. Richardson had a couple of similar moments (particularly "I've been in hostage negotiations that were more civil than this") and did well referring to his experience.

Of course, every candidate had some issues. While Richardson talked a lot about his executive and diplomatic experience, he didn't form a coherent narrative about it - as policy debate judges like to say, he didn't do the work for his audience, leaving us to connect the dots between, say, Richardson's extensive resume and Hillary's argument about change through experience. Hillary got pretty ticked off when John Edwards accused her of being a force for the status quo, as well as when someone said that Bill Clinton had talked about change and never delivered. The impact of her appearing to go negative - and lose control - depends largely on how she campaigns over the next three days, but this could be very risky, since it's difficult for her to move so rapidly from the clear frontrunner to a candidate on the defensive without appearing to be seriously weakened. Obama failed to answer a lot of the charges that Hillary made against him in the two big categories of flip-flops (on single-payer health care, Iraq funding, the Patriot Act, and the like) and experience. In part this might be because there simply wasn't time for him to jump back in and answer them, but he should have fought harder, spoken more concisely, and directly refuted those charges - I don't think it constitutes a violation of the politics of hope to refute attacks made on your record. Richardson was solid but not nearly as impressive as he needed to be, in my opinion, to make an impression on New Hampshire voters who don't know much about him. He seized the opportunity to play the senior statesman a couple of times (the hostage-negotiation line, for instance), but those were moments, not a theme. Also, he kept pounding the damn table in a way that was picked up by the microphone - if you read the liveblog, you already know that that drove me nuts. Even Edwards' talk about what defines his candidacy - the strident defense of the middle class (funny that there wasn't a word about poverty tonight), the repeated assertion that "this fight is personal for me," the assault on entrenched interests and the defense of change - did more to distinguish him from Clinton than from Obama. A failure to make the latter distinction could quite possibly mean that Edwards' attacks hurt Clinton but don't help himself.

Finally, a big boo to Clinton and Obama for not answering Gibson's last question: what would you take back from this series of presidential debates? Stupid question or not, it's even dumber to blatantly not answer it in a closer that people will probably remember. Even if they had to pick something inane, they should have at least given a direct answer before spewing platitudes, however true, about how much greater the Democrats are than the Republicans.

Overall: not entirely a wash, but also not conclusive enough that three days of good spinning couldn't make this debate work for any candidate's advantage or disadvantage. New Hampshire, here we come.