Obama Wins First Presidential Debate!

Thursday, April 26, 2007 - 10:00pm

Obama Wins First Presidential Debate!

I'm a little biased. Can you tell? Ok, I must confess that I didn't watch one minute of the Democratic debate tonight. My (cheap) hotel does not get MSNBC and no respectable bar/restaurant would be playing a 2008 presidential debate in April, 2006.

However, I did my homework and was happy to hear that the candidates spent an extensive amount of time on gun control. Of course, they should ban handguns completely in this country, but I doubt any candidate took that stance. Like John Kerry, most Democrats are deathly afraid to take a strong position on gun control. Five of the eight candidates have kept guns in their house at one point. Lovely!

Joe Biden would be a great candidate if he stopped putting his foot in his mouth in other settings. He is the strongest Democrat on foreign policy, including Iraq. He is the only politician on either side of the aisle who has proposed a viable solution to the conflict in Iraq. His proposal to divide the nation of Iraq into three separate federations (Sunni, Shia, Kurd) is the only way the violence will subside.

Much of the debate centered around Iraq, with Barack Obama making the key quote of "We are one signature away from ending this war", a reference to the bill that is set to come before President Bush. Obama scored well with that comment and with many others. He clearly was more substance than style.

Hillary Clinton stood by her terrible Iraq war vote, with John Edwards saying she should search her conscience. Hillary ducked and dodged, stating that the question is what we do now. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a good answer for that either.

All that said, this debate really didn't matter. Like me, very few people were watching it. It took place late on a Thursday night in April. The first primary is still nine month away. Considering nobody made any major mistakes, nothing really changed.

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