Last night in Philadelphia, the home of the Constitution, ABCNews hosted a debate between the two Democratic frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Just six days ahead of a crucial primary, the debate could have been a final opportunity for voters to see key differences in the candidates’ platforms and visions for the country.

Instead, moderators Charlie Gordon and George Stephanopoulos chose to spend over half of the two-hour time slot throwing out gotcha questions about gaffes and implications of guilty by association. Not a single real policy question was asked until past the one-hour mark.

The first 9 questions (over an hour of the debate) were about the following topics:

• Each choosing the other as VP candidate
• Obama’s “elitist” remarks
• Clinton telling Bill Richardson that Obama can’t beat McCain.
• Rev. Wright: why Obama didn’t distance himself sooner
• Rev. Wright: does he love American as much as Obama?
• Clinton viewed as dishonest because of Bosnia misstatements.
• Flag lapel pins
• Obama’s ‘relationship’ with terrorist William Ayres

After each commercial break, ABC showed articles from the Constitution, accompanied by a serious, deep voiceover. Each time they followed these solemn statements with an inane question about things like lapel pins, it was hard to decide whether to laugh or howl in frustration.

At long last, after these gems came a more serious discussion – of Iraq, Iran & Israel, taxes, gun control, affirmative action, gas prices, and how each would find a role for soon-to-be former President Bush to play (this one got a bit of a chuckle out of both of them).

After the debates, the Internet and talk radio were abuzz with many journalists, bloggers and talk-show hosts excoriating the moderators for shoddy journalism. At the time of this writing, abcnews.com had over 16,000 comments from viewers, most of them appalled by the debate.

Update: evidently, ABCnews.com has deleted the vast majority of the comments.

Many Obama supporters cried foul, saying that the debate was like a 3-to-1 tag team effort against their candidate. Clinton supporters were more calm, smugly noting that it was about time that somebody asked some tough questions of Obama, whom they regard as the object of media adoration.

Regardless of which candidate they supported, most of the disgruntled took aim at the topics covered by the hosts. Rehashing old gaffes or associations that have already been covered ad nauseum isn’t helpful to anyone trying to make up his or her mind about the primary.

Granted, the two candidates agree on most issues, so at some point the moderators run out of ideas for keeping the debates fresh. But they should be more concerned with advancing discourse than with pandering to ratings-hungry producers who expect bloodbaths.

As for the candidates themselves: it appeared to me that each was growing irritated with the line of questioning, though they each grabbed the opportunity to add to the mess rather than rise above.

For example, after Clinton was asked about the Bosnia sniper-fire “issue” and she agreed that her statements had not been “as accurate as they could have been”, Obama began to hint that the media should lay off, that we all make mistakes. It sounded great until he used, as an example, her infamous 1992 quote which sarcastically asked the country whether they thought she should have stayed home to bake cookies instead of having a career. He indicated that he remembered the furor over that remark and thinking that Hillary was being wronged. Of course, in his “defense” of her he’s reminded us all, once again, of the statement.

Clinton was very coy in her ad hominem attacks, getting in her digs but couching them as things the Republicans will use against him. It was all really “Oh, me? No, I wouldn’t say anything bad about Obama. But let me tell you a few things I think those nasty Republicans will use against him…..”

The candidates did shine a bit when they finally got a chance to talk about policy. It’s just too bad they weren’t given more of a chance to do it. Nothing was said about alternative energy, NAFTA / trade agreements, the Olympics in China, the FAA – and that’s just off the top of my head.

So, who won the debate? Probably the McCain campaign, though McCain himself hasn’t tended to stoop to the level of badgering Obama or Clinton for gaffes.

And who lost? Judging by the reaction of viewers and bloggers, the big loser was ABC News in general, and Charlie Gibson & George Stephanopoulis. Oh yeah, and the voters in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and North Carolina. They deserve better.

We all deserve better than this.

(The full transcript of the debate can be found here.

Update: for a much funnier recap of the debate, check out The Colbert Report take on it.

The cutting-edge technology used to tally the caucus votes

On Tuesday I attended my first Democratic caucus. I live in a conservative neighborhood at the north end of a liberal city, and as I was driving to the caucus I imagined that it would be me, three old ladies, and the sound of crickets.

Wrong.

As I approached the crowd, I asked someone on the outer edges which caucus it was and was gratified to see her smile and say, “The Republicans don’t caucus ’til 8. These are all Dems.”

What? In my neighborhood?!

I wasn’t the only one who was surprised. A local somewhat well-known (to our group) Republican character running for some office or another looked downright appalled as he walked past the group. I wish I’d had the reaction time required to snap a picture of the expression on his face.

The shell-shocked caucus chairwoman managed to keep it together with grace, and the general mood was lighthearted and happy. After we’d all shown our voter registration cards or IDs and proof that we’d voted in the primary, we were directed to write down all of our information, including which candidate we supported.

After about 30 minutes, we were seated comfortably in a cafeteria chatting excitedly about democracy and the election. We looked around, trying to guess who among us might be Republicans in Hillary clothing while waiting for the people in charge to tally the votes.

We were informed that 235 of us had shown up, and that in 2004, 13 people had. Everyone looked around, feeling pretty impressed with themselves until the caucus chairwoman casually, smilingly tossed out, “Where have you all been hiding? It would have been nice to hear from you before now!”

They then announced our precinct’s results:

80 votes for Hillary Clinton
155 votes for Barack Obama

After that, they split us up into groups by candidate and asked us to elect our delegates, who will move on to the county caucus at the end of March.

And that was it. It was orderly – as orderly as 235 Democrats in one place can be – and it was friendly, and everyone left with a good feeling. Of course, 155 of those people left with a slightly better feeling, but overall, it was a good experience for all involved.

No questionable or illegal proceedings. No voter disenfranchisement. No shouting, crying, or police. Just 235 people, excited about a Presidential election, enthusiastically spending a couple of hours to help determine its course.

Remember 1992, when young upstart Bill Clinton was trailing in the polls during the campaign season? And then he went on the then-hot Arsenio Hall show and played his saxophone?

Many people point to this as a major turning point in Clinton’s campaign. He connected with young people and showed he was culturally relevant and a pretty cool guy – or so we thought at the time.

Was Hillary Clinton’s appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend her “Arsenio moment”?

Well, it was pretty funny. Clinton showed us a side we’ve yet to see on the campaign trail: she was funny and even humorously self-deprecating, as this exhange shows:

Amy Poehler: How is the campaign going?
Hillary Cinton: Great, it’s going really, really, really well…Why, what have you heard?

I enjoyed the clip and the warm fuzzy it gave me, and I think it was a pretty smart move on Clinton’s part.

I’m just not sure that three days before Apocalypse Tuesday is the best time for the appearance. Perhaps just before or after Super Tuesday would’ve been better; an appearance then might’ve helped mitigate some of her less dazzling displays of personality from the past few weeks.

What do you think?

Obama at a rally in Beaumont, Texas

Last week at a rally in Beaumont, Texas, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama told a mostly African-American audience that homophobia is not a Christian value. This echoes his speech on Martin Luther King, Jr Day which subtly assailed evangelical Christians, especially African American ones, for shunning Jews, gays, and imigrants.

At the Beaumont rally, Obama’s answers during a Q&A session generated cheers every time, until he was asked about GLBT rights. His answer – that people shouldn’t be discriminated against based on race, religion, gender, etc – was wildly cheered. But when he added that gays and lesbians deserve equality, crickets chirped in the silence that followed.

He then headed in a different direction, noting that he prays to Jesus every night (a smart sound bite for the national news), and that it’s not Christian behavior to hate others. This time the crowd responded more positively.

I’m pretty impressed that Obama has at least twice brought up this issue in a forum not likely to be supportive of the view. It’s easy enough to tout gay rights while speaking at a gay forum or parade, but to gently chide his own base over something that’s likely a hot-button issue is pretty brave.

Sure, he’s savvy enough not to openly support gay marriage, which would probably sink him with any evangelical supporters he currently has, so to some extent is a fairly safe statement to make, politically speaking.

But I’m still impressed that he did it.

Enough is enough. The Clinton campaign, obviously beginning to realize that their candidate isn’t the inevitable nominee, has clearly started writing its denouement.

The question they should be asking themselves at this point isn’t ‘What can we throw at this guy to get some traction in Ohio’ but ‘What’s a good long-term strategy for the Clinton brand?’

First, I do understand that the race is not over, and that Senator Clinton still stands a reasonable chance at becoming the Democratic nominee. And I also understand that, in a tight race, the fight becomes fierce. The Democratic Party seems to have made an art form out of eating its own during the primary process, so this is nothing new.

However, the types of attacks which Clinton is putting forth now certainly have the hallmarks of the last gasps of a desperate campaign whose willingness to win is eclipsing logical, long-term thinking.

The Head Covering

It’s a pretty good bet that you’ve seen the picture of Obama dressed in traditional Kenyan clothing, including a turban-like head covering. According to Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, who displays the picture here, the picture came from the Clinton campaign. The campaign has offered some wishy-washy quasi-denials, but if it’s true, this is truly pathetic and despicable. Obama is not a fundamentalist Muslim, though this fact is sort of beside the point. It’s a desperate move indeed when one feels the need to cash in on latent racism (anti-Islam sentiment) to secure the nomination against someone who, presumably, is on the same side as you after the election is finished.

It’s also ineffective, because the same people who would not vote for Obama upon seeing this picture are probably already not voting for him for other reasons, and seeing “proof” of his menacing background just lets them rationalize their uneasiness toward him.

Mockery

Yesterday Senator Clinton sneeringly mocked Obama’s message of hope:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbIN3GLynXk

” ‘I could just stand up here and say “Let’s just get everybody together, let’s get unified,” she told supporters at a rally in Providence, Rhode Island.

‘The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.

‘Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions at how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear.’ “

Ok, so she’s spent decades working towards this goal, and is understandably upset that someone with pretty words may well ruin it for her. But this was absolutely the wrong response to Obama’s message. When the other guy is running on – and winning with – an inspiring message of hope, this type of answer comes across as far too cynical and condescending. It also cements in many Democrats’ minds that Clinton doesn’t offer anything new, and also that she’s gearing up for a huge fight with Republicans as President rather than for thoughtful diplomacy. For every “I’m ready for the fight” that Senator Clinton tosses to the crowd, Obama has matched it with a more measured appeal to bipartisanship. Even if this isn’t practical and reeks of naivete, Clinton shouldn’t respond to it with mockery.

The Clinton Brand

Next Tuesday, we could be looking at an entirely different scenario, depending on the outcome of the Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont primaries. We may be seeing a revitalized Clinton campaign marching toward nomination.

But it’s not looking great. Polls show the two in a dead heat, in contrast to two weeks ago when Hillary held commanding leads in delegate-rich Ohio and Texas. Of course, we can’t believe the polls – just look at the New Hampshire results – but Senator Clinton has got to start thinking about her long-term status in the public arena.

Clinton needs to think about how she’s perceived should her bid for the presidency be unsuccessful.

If she bows out gracefully and with a message of support for Obama and the Democratic Party, she will be lauded. She has a good shot at a leadership role in the Senate, and is still young enough for another presidential bid in 2012 or even 2016. If, however, she’s seen as a destructive, divisive force and as someone who resists the will of the party for her own ends, the Clinton stock will take a serious hit.