So I watched the debate in it’s entirety and while it was a spirited debate i think little will change. There might be a shift of Hillary support thanks to her ill-timed quips, and polls are showing that her support is eroding in TX (some show a Obama lead) and OH (latest poll shows a 10% drop for Hillary. What are some of my observations from the debate?

• Hillary was asked right off the bat why she had such a radical change from conciliatory to enraged to sarcastic. She claimed it as “defending herself” because Obama fliers had stated opinions “about my health care plan and my position on NAFTA have been very disturbing to me”. Later it was show that she has supported NAFTA contrary to her claims in 1994, 2000, and 2004.
• The first 16 minutes was a Health Care spar between the two plans. While it was a spirited debate there was not much new ground covered although during the debate Hillary got flustered off the bat because she was asked a question first and tried to fire a zinger that fell almost as flat as the Xerox line: “maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow.”
• Both Hillary and Obama agreed that NAFTA would be killed if not renegotiated.
• Tim asked if Hillary’s 5M new jobs claim is lofty given that she promised Upstate NY 200k new jobs when in fact the area has lost 30k jobs. Her response is that Bush is in the whitehouse.
• Tim tried to play the fear card and asked a hypothetical “if we leave Iraq and it goes to hell, will you re-invade”.
• Tim asked Obama if he would stick to public funding as he answered on his questionnaire and some in the press is calling a waffle. Obama stated he would talk to McCain if he becomes the nominee.
• Clinton stalled about making her tax returns public.
• Tim asked if he would reject Farrakhan’s support, which Obama stated he denounced anything to do with the minister. But that wasn’t good enough and Tim pressed on. Hillary tried to find an opening to trip Obama up and said he needed to use stronger language. Obama came back and said “But if the word ‘reject’ Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.” which got some laughs from the crowd.
• Clinton got a huge break in the end with the question “would you ever take back a vote” which she clearly pounced on and said her Iraq vote. While it’s probably to late to help her with the anti-war crowd it was still a clear shot to let her get away from the Iraq vote a little. Obama had a interesting choice in the Terri Schiavo case and while he did not vote on the bill his inaction was just as costly as making a bad vote.

All in all it was a spirited debate but I have to give the advantage to Obama. He always looked cool under pressure and gave articulate responses. Not to take away from Hillary but her continued ill-timed quips and seemingly easy access to fluster her possibly cost her some points. It will be interesting to see what the TX, OH, RI, and VT vote brings!