University of Texas-Austin Debate: Obama Shines; Clinton saves Face

I’ll probably post some youtube videos of the debate when they become available.

Hillary Clinton She probably had the best two moments of the debate. The first is when she said that she was going to end George Bush’s “war on science”!!!!!!!! Score one for her, in my book!

Also, she closed strong; she got slightly emotional as she talked about the wounded war veterans in a military hospital and mentioned that her “trials” were nothing in comparison to what they faced. Excellent line; she definitely “won” the closing statement phase.

But: her attempts to attack Obama during the middle of the debate fell flat; flatter than a space that has a Euclidean geometry on it. Obama parried it in an embarrassingly easy manner. Also, she didn’t sound all that convincing on health care; the difference was, in effect, on whether we should put mandates on people to buy into it.

At times, her body language almost looked as if she were saying “hey, pay attention to me!” and she closed as if she knew that she is losing.

Now of course, that worked for her in New Hampshire. Will that work for her again?

Obama: he didn’t close as well, but he did well enough, and he was strong, much more relaxed and in control throughout. He presents much more of a “let’s negotiate, let’s do it together” approach as opposed to the “let’s fight to the end, give no quarter, no surrender” approach that Clinton seems to take.

In short: if cooperation appeals to you (trusting others to be rational and reasonable most of the time), and if getting others to join you and to take part in a journey, then you probably like Obama. If having a champion to fight for you appeals to you, if you want someone to “take it to them” on your behalf, then you probably like Clinton.

There were two very different approaches, and my guess is that those who are pretty sure of who they are going to vote for probably didn’t change their mind (in either direction). About the undecided? I don’t know; my guess is that many of the undecideds are sick of the bickering and partisanship and will probably gravitate toward Obama; after all, in Wisconsin, Obama had a big edge on those who decided within the last month.

Summary: Clinton debates better than she campaigns. I actually like the candidate that I see in debates. I don’t like how poorly her campaign has been run. Obama debates well and campaigns well. If Clinton wins the nomination, she needs to revamp her campaign from top to bottom. On the other hand, Obama will be “ready on day one” to start the general election campaign.

As far as “who won”, well the Daily Kos has an opinion (don’t we always?) and it is predictable:

Poll

Who won tonight’s debate?
Hillary Clinton 15% 120 votes
Barack Obama 84% 639 votes

| 759 votes

See?

Poll

Who won tonight’s debate?
Hillary Clinton 16% 266 votes
Barack Obama 83% 1364 votes

| 1630 votes

Update: ok, I had to trash talk a bit more on the Daily Kos. The general feeling is that, though her attacks on Obama failed, (and yes, she got booed), Clinton did herself proud; she didn’t flop. But Obama also did himself proud; he didn’t lose any ground nor any momentum; in fact he may have closed the deal with some undecideds that were leaning toward him. We shall see.

My final poll link of the night:

Who won tonight’s debate?
Hillary Clinton 18% 731 votes
Barack Obama 81% 3317 votes

| 4048 vote

My guess is that by tomorrow morning, Obama will be 78-84, Clinton 16-22. We’ll see if my calculations are correct.

Of course, keep in mind that the last straw poll had Obama up 76-11 and it is same to say that the “undecideds” at the Kos break for Obama at about a 2-1 margin (at least), so this poll won’t change that much, in terms of percentage, as the night turns into morning.