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You don't need The Weathermen to know which way the wind blows: This thing is over, and has been for weeks and weeks now. But, ABC held a debate tonight in Philadelphia anyway, and, man, it was a tough slog. [Transcript.] Moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos endlessly trafficked in inanities. (The Weather Underground? Really?) Sen. Clinton found no level she couldn't passive-aggressively sink beneath: Cringeworthy throughout, she name-dropped Farrakhan and channeled 9iu11iani whenever possible (see, for example, her answers on Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, and she got in Ahmadinejad's recent remarks as well.) And Sen. Obama seemed tired, a bit rusty, and, after 45 shallow minutes of idiotic gotcha, (justifiably) ticked. (But I thought he still came through in the clutch anyway.)

The only news made tonight? ABC is rather terrible at this whole debate thing. Tonight was basically a fiasco. From Stephanopoulos questioning Obama on flag pins to the tut-tutting about affirmative action to George getting questions from Sean Hannity to Gibson trying to wrest a "no new taxes" pledge from the candidates, virtually every minute tonight was occupied with trite Republican nonsense. Oh, and Gibson's dim remark at the Manchester debate that two-professor families make $200,000 a year was not a fluke. Apparently, the guy knows less about the economy than John McCain. Tonight he informed us that there "are a heck of a lot of people" making between $97,000 and $200,000 these days. If by "heck of a lot" you mean 14% of the US, well, ok. But some might consider 1 in 7 a rather small minority of the total population, and thus argue that our tax policy should keep the other, more-likely-to-be-struggling 6 out of 7 in mind. Sheesh...less than a week and our friends in the pundit world have already abandoned their newfound blue-collar bitterness.

At any rate, no news or game-changers to speak of. Sen. Obama is still our nominee, Sen. Clinton is still grappling with that fact. If you didn't watch this tonight, you chose wisely. Update: Having run ABC's gauntlet of idiocy, Obama brushes his shoulders off, puts distractions on notice, and says no to more debates.

The 20th and (hopefully) final round of the Democratic debate was tonight in Cleveland, Ohio. [Transcript.] Once again, no real gamechangers to mention, and thus, momentum-wise, Sen. Obama came out on top. (I thought he came out on top anyway, but am willing to concede I'm not the best judge of this sort of thing.) I don't have a lot to add at this point: We always seem to cover the same basic issues in these debates, and Obama was Obama, Clinton was Clinton, and (sigh) Russert was Russert. Rinse and repeat.

That being said, I do think Sen. Clinton's campaign would have been better served by having last Thursday's debate performance tonight, even if some people construed her closing as a valedictory. Perhaps it plays better to undecideds looking for a fighter above all else, but I thought this was perhaps Clinton's weakest debate performance since last October, when she tied herself in knots over drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants. Two particularly cringeworthy moments: 1) Sen. Clinton's whining about the question order, which drew boos from the crowd and seemed remarkably petty, and 2) Sen. Clinton trying to tar Obama as weak on Farrakhan, and -- thanks to Obama drawing attention to her parsing -- ending up looking ridiculous. (FWIW, Sen. Obama addressed Farrakan in depth the other day during a Q&A with Jewish-community leaders.) But even notwithstanding those obvious moments, Sen. Clinton just kept trying to press the offense tonight in rather tone-deaf and unpresidential fashion. See also the 16-minute health care hijacking at the start of the debate, where Obama more than held his own. (As well he should -- we've only gone through this, lo, twenty times or so now.)

At any rate, from this admittedly biased corner Sen. Obama seemed magnanimous and presidential, while Sen. Clinton seemed desperate and petulant. But, from any corner, it's hard to envision this debate performance resulting in the twenty-point margins Clinton needs in both Ohio and Texas to stay viable. Now is by no means the time for we Obama supporters to take our collective foot off the gas: Keep volunteering, phonebanking, donating, and above all voting. Nevertheless, allowing some latitude to keep the karma gods happy, we're in garbage time, folks.

In case you missed it, debate No. 19, held in Austin, TX, came and went this evening. (Transcript.) My quick take: Not all that much news made here, and, as a tie goes to the defender, that's a win for Barack Obama.

The big question coming in tonight was whether, after losing eleven contests in a row, Sen. Clinton would go into relentless-attack-mode (as desired by Mark Penn) or instead try to reassert her positives and perhaps prepare for a dignified exit to the race (as advised by Mandy Grunwald.) Well, the answer turned out to be yes. The first forty-five minutes or so were civil, agreeable, and thoroughly stultifying, basically a duller continuation of the LA debate of three weeks ago. Then, in the middle going, Sen. Clinton began trying to score some points, for example, by (once again) calling Obama a plagiarist and saying the Senator represented "change you can xerox." (That canned line backfired rather badly, and drew the only boos of the night. I hope this is because most people realize the plagiarism charge is absolutely moronic.)

For his part, Sen. Obama -- looking ever more presidential, as is the frontrunner's wont -- took the high road, correctly calling such maneuvers part of the "silly season" of politics and keeping the conversation mostly about substantive differences, such, as, once again, the interminable mandate question. (He had a particularly good response to the "cult" charge: "The implication has been that the people who have been voting for me or involved in my campaign are somehow delusional...The thinking is that somehow they're being duped...and that eventually they're going to see the reality of things. I think they perceive the reality of what's going on in Washington very clearly." Touche.)

The moment that's getting a lot of the buzz right now is Sen. Clinton's closing statement, which (Xerox alert!) borrowed heavily from both John Edwards and Bill Clinton in 1992. (I actually don't care at all about that, but if you're going to throw around spurious claims of plagiarism, you'd best be careful about that glass house.) More troublingly, in her close Sen. Clinton explicitly invoked her surprisingly game-changing Reverse Muskie back in New Hampshire. (She began this particular lip-quavering moment by asking herself the same goofy question she got in the diner: "How do you do it?")

Now, I don't want to claim Sen. Clinton is a fraud, even if she's seemed considerably less than "absolutely honored to be here with Barack Obama" over the past three weeks of scurrilious charges and no concession speeches. If anything, I agree with CNN's Jeffrey Toobin, who was much less enthralled by the moment than that venerable Establishment Davos-boogier, David Gergen. I think she got genuinely choked up for exactly the same reasons as she did back in NH. With the writing on the wall for her candidacy, this was a valedictory moment of sorts. Fine, she's earned it, and I applaud her for seemingly choosing, at least for a few moments, a graceful exit that will help bring the party back together. That being said, I wouldn't get such a guilty twinge of Bernie Birnbaum-ish grandstanding about it all if she hadn't explicitly invoked the diner tear, and/or if Clinton flunky Howard Wolfson hadn't immediately try to tell us afterward that this was "the moment she retook the reins of this race and showed women and men why she is the best choice." Um, no, not really.

Heya. Sorry this is going up so late...I spent the evening at the Generation Obama event in Midtown, so my usual prObama take on the debates got even more reinforcement than usual...

First off, it was heartening to watch a surprisingly substantive debate. The Nevada roundtable was too sweet, and the Myrtle Beach slugfest was too sour, but tonight's much-heralded showdown in Los Angeles actually seemed just right. [Transcript.] Both candidates were able to tease out and discuss notable differences in their policies, particularly on health care, immigration reform, and Iraq, while keeping a civil, friendly tone that didn't seem as unnaturally forced as back in Vegas.

With all that being said, and to no one's surprise, I thought Barack Obama came out ahead this evening. (In fact, I agree with Andrew Sullivan -- this might've been his best debate thus far.) He showed a clear and nuanced command of policy. He made a solid case for his strengths, most notably on the question of judgment ("Right on Day 1.") He explained well how he's more electable, particularly against John McCain. He was wry and personable. And -- when it came to the Republicans -- he was often devastating. (That Romney takedown was too rich.)

Hillary Clinton was also good tonight, but she gave more than a few answers that were real groaners. On immigration reform, her attempt to be Obamaesque by invoking the Statue of Liberty was strange and flat. More problematically, her answer on drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants made no sense (She's against licenses for illegals, to protect illegals?) And, worst of all, when given the chance to defuse a zero-sum understanding of the immigrant issue, she instead told a story about an African-American man who blamed Latinos for his job loss, and it was hard not to read an off-putting Bendixen subtext into it.

Most notably, when it came to Iraq in the final third, Clinton was terrible. Rather than just admit she made a mistake in either [a] supporting the war or [b] believing Dubya, she seemed unwilling to concede any possibility of error, and got stuck in an increasingly tortured answer about her position on the AUMF vote. It was unseemly, to say the least, even Dubyaesque. And the more she spun her wheels, the better Obama looked. Update: Apparently, she also butchered the truth about the Levin Amendment.

Still, my general impression is that CNN's Jeff Toobin basically got the larger chess game right: As a TPM commenter well put it: Hillary Clinton is currently in the lead and is trying to run the four corners until the clock runs out. Barack Obama is surging massively right now and didn't want to upset that o-mentum unduly. So neither candidate felt they needed to shake up the current paradigm all that much, which helped keep everything friendly.

Instead, Obama wanted to show undecideds that he has presidential gravitas and can policy-wonk as needed. Clinton wanted to staunch her negatives and get the focus back on her rather than Wild Bill. (Which reminds me, no question about Kazakhstan?) In that sense, both candidates accomplished what they came to do.

Now, it's up to us.

"I understand that most viewers want to know, how am I going to get helped in terms of paying my health care? How am I going to get help being able to go to college? All those things are important. But what's also important that people are not just willing to say anything to get elected. And that's what I have tried to do in this campaign, is try to maintain a certain credibility.I don't mind having policy debates with Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards. But what I don't enjoy is spending the week or two weeks or the last month having to answer to these kinds of criticisms that are not factually accurate."

The faux bonhomie of Nevada's roundtable well behind them, the Democratic candidates started throwing haymakers in tonight's lively South Carolina debate. [Transcript.] Unlike the last two meetings, I'm not going spend a lot of time on a full-fledged summary, since -- when it gets this heated onstage -- I don't think it's particularly useful. Judging from the comment threads at the various political sites, people will see what they want to see. Clinton supporters are coming out of the woodwork to say she won the night. Well, that was definitely not my impression.

For my part, I was glad to see Barack Obama strongly counter Clinton's continued distortions in the first hour, and finally push back on Clinton's dubious "35 years of change" line (including, as it does, twelve years at the Rose Law Firm, which has been billed as Arkansas' "ultimate establishment law firm.") And he did a great job in the seated second hour of reasserting his positives -- the funny and gracious "first black president" answer, for example -- while staying on message.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was at her evasive, misleading, Rovian worst. She did ok on the first question, about the economic stimulus package, but went rapidly downhill thereafter. Rather than running on her own record, She repeated her distortions about Reagan. She repeated her husband's distortions about Obama's stance on Iraq. She tried (and failed) to turn Obama's present votes in the Illinois Senate into a vote for sexual abuse. And she like her husband -- basically accused Obama (wrongly) of being Clintonian. ("[I]t is very difficult having a straight-up debate with you, because you never take responsibility for any vote, and that has been a pattern.")

Clinton also tried to inject the Rezko story into the debate. For those not following, Tony Rezko is a clearly shady Chicago businessmen with whom Obama had dealings with as a state legislator, and an iffy-looking land deal thereafter. An error in judgment, to be sure, and one he's apologized for (even though it looks like there's no there there.) Now it's a fair thing to bring up, as Obama himself admitted. But,to be honest, Rezko is really not a road Hillary Clinton wants to go down. For one, you'd think the Clintons -- of all people -- would try to avoid insinuating corruption-by-association when it comes to land deals. For another, do Norman Hsu, Marc Rich, and Johnny Chung ring a bell? Shady operators in the margins are and have been the Clintons' forte.

But I digress. Once the fur started to fly, John Edwards got plugged into the "above the fray" role by default, which may have helped him out among undecideds, I guess. Still, I was glad to see he directed attacks at both Obama and Clinton as he felt warranted, which should prevent another embarrassing post-debate spin along the lines of "the men were picking on me." But you never know. After all the outrageous displays of intellectual dishonesty from the Clinton camp, both tonight and over the past few weeks, I'd put nothing past them at this point.

Despite the best efforts of Tim Russert, who asked rinky-dink meta-questions about the past week for most of the first segment, the Democratic debate in Los Vegas was a pause for breath tonight, with Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton all going out of their way to dial back the heat and try to bridge the identity politics chasms that have yawned open of late. As such, with all three candidates on their best behavior and looking to avoid direct confrontations that might get nasty, it was the type of debate that made the party and all three contenders look good, but also probably didn't change very many votes.

From where I sat -- and this will surprise exactly no one -- I thought Barack Obama came off the best of the three. He seemed gracious in his call to move past last week's racial firestorm and deflected the -- many -- attempts by Russert to re-inject race into the debate. He offered the only funny moments of the evening (Brian Williams thinking he was in LA notwithstanding) and seemed convincing and natural. And, perhaps most importantly, he displayed a command of policy specifics and a capacity for nuance, which once again belies the argument that he's just a oratorical Hope machine. He seemed, in a word, presidential. (Although I do wish, when asked when he'd first decided to run for president, he'd simply said "kindergarten.")

John Edwards was as good and on-message as always, but it didn't seem like he managed to do anything tonight that would be a game-changer. (Then again, in an atmosphere of such explicit convivality as tonight, Edwards' central message -- I will fight for you! -- didn't have much of a chance to gain traction anyway. That being said, he did manage to trump Clinton's dubious "35 years of experience" claim by announcing that "for 54 years I've been fighting with every fiber of my being." 54 years of fighting? Hey, let's not forget those nine months in the womb, there.) Edwards also brought up one of the first campaign finance questions we've heard in awhile -- one in which Obama announced he'd ultimately be for public financing, which made me happy -- but due to the moderators not seeming to understand their own rules, it never got around to Senator Clinton, where it was likely -- and should have been -- directed.

Hillary Clinton came across better tonight than she did in New Hampshire, and, to her credit, she also did her part to uphold the truce (at least in public.) But -- again, not a shocker here -- I still found her dismayingly evasive on several questions: on Robert Johnson (do you believe his ridiculous clarification or do you think his comments were "out of bounds"?), on whether her opponents were qualified (she couldn't just say yes?), on the bankruptcy bill (you voted for it in 2001 but was glad it didn't pass?), and of course, on the politics of fear question, to take a few examples. But, as always, she had done her homework, she smartly went after Dubya a few times, and she had the talking points ready to attack on the Yucca Mountain question. (Without meaning to dismiss the important issue at hand, it's safe to say "Yucca" is apparently Nevadan for "ethanol.")

So, at any rate, I'd say Obama came off the best tonight, but Edwards and Clinton were both solid as well. (And I would presume supporters of the other two candidates would say the same, with perhaps the names rearranged.) More than anything, tonight was a chance for tempers to cool and for the party to show it was ready -- despite the best efforts of Mr. Russert -- to discuss matters of substance again. Still, with Nevada this Saturday and South Carolina right around the corner, I wouldn't expect the next debate to be so congenial.

So, the debates.

Of course, every big show has an opening act, and the undercard tonight was the Republicans. I realize I've been slipping on the GOP coverage around these parts of late, and I apologize...I promise to catch up once the Dem side quiets down (As a show of good faith: hey, look! Romney won Cheney country.) Still, part of the reason I've been losing interest in the GOP's internecine disputes this cycle is because -- even notwithstanding the moldering albatross that is Dubya -- their candidates are all so lousy, and everyone knows it. (The Iowa attendance numbers, where the Dems outnumbered Republicans 2-1, tell most of the story.) Still, my main impressions of the GOP side tonight were thus:

"'Whether it's fair or not fair, the fact of the matter is that my colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, there are 50 percent of the American public that say they're not going to vote for her. I'm not saying anything that people don't know already. I don't necessarily like it, but those are the facts,' Dodd said." Edwards, Obama, and Dodd (finally) release the hounds at last night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia. Said Edwards: "I mean, another perspective on why the Republicans keep talking about Senator Clinton is, Senator, they may actually want to run against you, and that's the reason they keep bringing you up." (Update: Edwards' Youtube team pounces on the politics of parsing.)To be honest, I DVR'ed the debate and haven't watched it yet, partly because I'm rather dispirited about the whole process (among other things) these days, and partly because the NBA's opening-night double-header was on TNT...which means, if nothing else, there should be something on TV most nights from now until June. (The Knicks start Friday.)

"I find it amusing that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism." The attacks grow more pointed among the Dems at last night's AFL-CIO debate (which I missed), and it sounds like both Obama and Edwards got in some good zingers. (Edwards: "The one thing you can count on is you will never see a picture of me on the front of Fortune magazine saying I am the candidate that big, corporate America is betting on.") And yet, a new poll finds Senator Clinton widening her lead over Obama to 18 points and enjoying huge advantages in big states like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Hmm. Is the race already over? The inveterate pessimist in me says definitely maybe, but let's remember, Howard Dean was looking pretty solid in August of 2003. We have a ways to go yet. (I mean, the critical Jolie and di Caprio endorsements are still up for grabs, for example. And Obama does have Bourne and Clooney locked up.)

Well, it may seem like they've been going at it for awhile now...nevertheless, the first official Democratic primary debate was held last night, co-sponsored by the good folks at CNN and YouTube. [Transcript.] (As you likely heard, this gimmick this time was that the questions were submitted by Youtube users the nation over. All in all, they turned out to be a mixed bag, but no more or less cutting than the ones usually conjured up by George Stephanopoulos, Anderson Cooper, or some other venerable talking head of the moment. Still, not a single query on campaign finance reform managed to sneak through the vetters...so now, I kinda wish I had at least tried to submit one.)

And the verdict this time? Well, no one broke out of the pack as a result of their performance last night, which -- the talking heads tell me (hey, David Gergen's gotta eat) -- means a win for Clinton. But, as with the past few debates, I still find my position further solidifying in favor of Obama and Edwards, and against the Senator from New York. (My reasons have been put forth previously here and here.) In fact, the most irritating moment of the debate for me, and I'll admit that this'll be considered well beyond stupid and pedantic to most people, was Senator Clinton's butchering of the distinction between "liberal" and "progressive" to contort her way out of having to name herself the former. For what it's worth, the key element of a turn-of-the-century progressive was never "someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms" -- that would be a liberal. Indeed, arguably the major flaw in the progressive movement -- until after WWI -- was its inattentiveness to individual rights and freedoms...hence, Prohibition, or, to take an even more sordid example, the proliferation of Jim Crow in the South.

But, more importantly, and this is what really irked me, Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be the least progressive of the Democratic candidates, in that she's been the most willing to get into bed with corporate interests time and time again. (And, for you historians reading this, yes, I'm calling shenanigans on Kolko.)

Ok, I'll concede, Clinton can't honestly be expected to deliver a comprehensive historical disquisition about liberalism v. progressivism in a 45-second debate answer. But, please don't chalk up my concern simply to being an aggrieved aspiring egghead just yet. (And, hey, speaking of parochial, Obama mentioned my hometown, Florence, SC, tonight, albeit not in a positive light. But I digress again.) The fact is, the differences between liberalism and progressivism do matter, particularly when you consider [a] how often politicians in our party seem confused, or even ignorant, about the Left's guiding political philosophies these days, and [b] how different a truly progressive presidential candidate would seem from what Hillary Clinton has yet offered us.

Most importantly, a true "modern progressive" would push campaign finance reform, ethics in government, and voting reform though the heavens fall. These are hardly central tenets of the Clinton campaign, to say the least. And, along with the obvious necessities of a sane, competent, foreign policy, accessible, affordable health care, and comprehensively reworked environmental and energy plans, a real "modern progressive" would also extol education, civics reform, universal (if not mandatory) service, community-building, a vast increase in arts and science funding, an end to child poverty...all ways to help renew the bonds of citizenship, to help encourage an active, engaged, self-governing electorate, and to help foster a new generation of Americans more attuned and responsive to the concerns of their fellow men and women -- here and around the globe -- than they are to the self-absorbed and increasingly inescapable dictates of rapacious consumerism and the corporate bottom line.

It's late, and I've clearly started soapboxing. Still, what I wrote back in 2000 here, before I came to Columbia, still holds: "I know it all sounds a bit academic and removed from reality, but, what can I say? This is where my idealism (or what vestiges of it that survive this election cycle) lies." Well, it's been a few election cycles since then, and in many other ways the years since have not been kind, in terms of progressivism or otherwise. I'd very much like to continue indulging in "the audacity of hope" when it comes to such matters -- I know it's way early in the game, and that we're probably still at least a good 3 or 4 "Macaca moments" out before this all gets decided. But increasingly, and particularly after listening to these debates thus far and the virtual Clinton coronation by the talking heads thereafter, other quotes often come to mind as well. For example: "Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands."

I'm not saying Clinton would make a terrible president -- Obviously, she'd be much better than the current fiasco of an administration. (But, as always, who wouldn't be?) But I do increasingly fear her tenure -- if it's marked by the same confused, wishy-washy and corporate-friendly Republican-lite "centrism" her campaign and the DLC have pushed in the past -- will make for yet another missed opportunity in terms of fostering real progressive change in this country. (And Senator Clinton, to get to the point: I know progressives. I've spent the past six years and change studying progressives. And, you, Madam, have been no progressive.)