The Great Snail Race, Part VII: The Second Debate

At the second Democratic Presidential Candidates debate, held Sunday in New Hampshire, an aggressive John Edwards came out swinging, Barack Obama unveiled a devastating counterpunch, and Hilary danced away from trouble, presumably to protect the lead she believes she has on the judging scorecard. Though Obama delivered the big punch of the night, sending Edwards to the canvas momentarily, Edwards hit the mark more consistently over the course of the night.

On Health Care
The first thirty minutes of the two-hour affair focused on Iraq, but for my money, the most substantive discussion turned on the question of health care. On this issue, Edwards took the gold, Obama the bronze, the silver went unclaimed, Kucinich merited an honorable mention, and Hilary was disqualified.

Edwards rightfully took credit for being the first to come out with a detailed, universal health care plan, and gave Obama credit for coming out with his not-quite universal health-care plan just a few days ago. In praising Obama, Edwards was making an indirect swipe at Hilary, who has not come out with a plan. Edwards also rightfully took credit for presenting an honest plan, admitting that he will have to raise taxes ( “roll back the Bush tax cuts,” as he puts it) on those who earn over $200,000 a year in order to pay for it.

Obama says the difference between his health care plan and Edwards’s is that Edwards favors mandatory health care for all, whereas his plan keeps health care optional and focuses on lowering coverage prices so that those who want it can afford it. He just wants mandatory health care for children (we also later learn that with regard to rolling back the Bush tax cuts, he sets the “rich bar” at $250,000 a year, $50,000 above where Edwards would put it). Edwards says Obama’s plan would initially leave 15 million people uncovered; Obama agrees, but insists that those 15 million will buy insurance if it is made affordable enough. Color me skeptical.

Hilary says the most important thing is not the plan, since everyone on the stage agrees that one is needed, but finding the political will to change the system. She then adds that by simply reforming the system through electronic medical records to better management of critical care, she thinks she can save $120 billion a year. Edwards had said earlier that the price tag for his universal plan would be between $90 and $120 billion a year. Edwards says all the savings Hilary talked about are both in his plan and Obama’s plan. Obama agrees that Hilary’s reform savings will not be worth the $120 billion a year she claims it will be.
Kucinich supports a single-payer system and wants to keep the insurance companies for running the system. It’s the best position, but he is the wrong one to advocate it.

On Darfur
Darfur was another topic that elicited a lively exchange. Biden kicked it off by claiming that Sudan has forfeited its sovereignty by refusing to allow United Nations and African Union troops in to stop the genocide in Darfur. Consequently, he’s in favor of enforcing a no fly zone and committing 2,500 NATO troops to take out the janjaweed. When moderator Wolf Blitzer asks the gang who agrees with Biden, everyone falls over themselves to clarify that they are in favor of enforcing a no fly zone, but don’t want to raise their hand to commit troops (even 2,500 NATO troops, apparently). Hilary comes off as the leader of the group when she says, “We” referring to herself and her fellow candidates, “are not going to get into hypotheticals.” Barack leans over to Hilary and says, “I don’t want to raise hands anymore.” Hilary laughs. Meanwhile, Bill Richardson is saying, “Wolf! Wolf! I was there. Can I respond?” He said the same thing earlier, but was beaten to the punch by Biden who made a similar “I was just there” claim. Bill says we don’t need another military involvement, but suggests that we ought to threaten not to go to the Olympics if China refuses to use its influence to stop the genocide in Sudan. Edwards agrees with Richardson that threatening to withdraw from the Olympics might be a necessary step. Dodd, Hilary, Obama, and Biden disagree, but Biden is angrier than anyone else on the stage and comes off as a hawk on Darfur. Edwards links the Darfur conundrum to the larger problem of America no longer having the moral authority to lead in the world and starts to roll out some ways to counter that perception, starting with a program to provide primary education to 100 million children. Wolf cuts him off to get back to the Darfur case, but Barack makes a similar move, referring to America’s moral leadership problem and complaining about the treatment of the detainees in Guantanamo and the suspension of habeus corpus. Biden says the way to recover America’s moral leadership with respect to Darfur is to send troops into Darfur.

On Iraq
Not much new with regard to Iraq in terms of substance, but we did see some of the first intra-party scrapping of the campaign. Edwards throws the first legitimate punch of the primary season by hammering Hilary and Barack for not being leaders on the war funding vote. They cast their “no” votes quietly and said nothing in the lead up. Obama swings back hard and connects by calling Edwards four-and-a-half years late on the Iraq issue and then cautions him against playing politics with the war funding vote. He gives Biden credit for having “a legitimate perspective” (Biden voted for the war funding bill). Hilary comes in clean after Obama clears the deck, saying the differences between her and her peers are minor. Edwards doesn’t do much besides repeat himself when the question gets thrown back to him. He later gives Obama credit for being right on the war and talks about the importance of being “open and honest with the American people,” an oblique reference to the fact that, unlike Hilary,he is willing to recognize that it was a mistake to vote to give the president authority to go to war with Iraq. Hilary says that with regard to the vote to authorize the president to go to war with Iraq, her mistake was to trust George Bush to do what he told them he was going to do. The veins in Biden’s neck are bulging when he claims that the 50 Democrats in the Senate cannot stop the war as long as Bush is president in response to the claims of Kucinich (and Crazy Uncle Mike) that the Democrats had failed to do the job the voters elected them to do. He is the only one on the stage to vote for the most recent war funding bill.

Scorecard.
John Edwards’ game-plan is to lead and to be honest. He talks about his “college for everyone” plan (the governments will pay for books and tuition for students who agree to work while in college) and suggests that we may want to change anti-trust laws to get at energy companies that refine the oil that they later sell for record profits. He didn’t do a good job of explaining his view that “The War on Terror” is a bumper sticker and little more (a view I agree with). And after he came out as a states-rightist on gay marriage he, incongruously, goes back to his “I’m a leader” line. When Hilary got a good question from a New Hampshire professor of military history about the U.S.’s military alliance with Pakistan--which is not a liberal democracy, she basically ignored the force of the question by talking about sending a high-level envoy to help Pakistan’s President Musharaf and President Karzai of Afghanistan. Edwards came back and tried to pick it up by talking about the danger of Musharaf away without knowing what will replace him. Not an idealist’s answer, but a fair one.

Hilary consistently redirects the focus away from her differences with her fellow candidates and to George Bush’s failures, but she starts the night by claiming that we’re “safer than we were”—distancing herself from Barack, who started the night by saying “we live in a more dangerous world not a less dangerous world partly as a consequence of this president’s actions.”

Barack did a good job of not backing away from his forceful claim that we should not be grateful to the Bush Administration for the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States since September 11th, 2001. His word of the night is “foresight.” Presumably, he has it. But Barack is also pushing himself as a hawk on Afghanistan. Wolf says Obama wants to raise the size of the military by 100,000 and increase the defense budget by billions. Obama does not disagree with the claim.

Joe Biden. Biden comes out strong in favor of letting gays serving openly in the military, noting that all our allies do it. When all the candidates were asked whether they would take out Bin Laden even if it meant some civilians would be killed, everyone’s hand shot up, but Biden added the necessary caveat that it would depend on how many civilians would actually be killed. Then several other voices tried to jump in and make the same claim. The next president has better be smarter than his advisors, Biden says. Presumably, Biden thinks he is that guy.

Dennis Kucinich talks about getting out of NATO and the WTO and going back to bi-lateral trade agreements based on workers’ rights, human rights and the environment. Good point, Dennis. I wish someone besides you would make it.

Bill Richardson. Richardson doesn’t get a chance to speak until we’re 18 minutes in (besides telling everybody his name), then he doesn’t do much with his at-bat. Bill gets more “thank you, please stop rambling” comments from Wolf Blitzer than anyone else. When a soldier’s mother asked why veterans cannot seek care in any hospital they want, Obama said that the Veterans Administration has access to certain “efficiencies” with regard to prescription drugs. Bill jumps in and disagrees by saying that veterans ought to be able to wherever they want. It was almost a strong play . . . but he blew it by talking about the question asker’s husband (it is her son, not her husband, who is a soldier.)

Mike Gravel. Gravel is the only one to raise his hand to the question of whether English should be designated as the official language of the United States. Barack complains that it’s a divisive question. Hilary speaks to the details: if it were official, we couldn’t pay to have translators in emergency rooms.

Chris Dud. Present.