The seven remaining Democratic candidates for President met last night for their final debate before Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. It was probably the least interesting debate so far, as each candidate stepped very lightly, attempting to avoid criticizing anyone except President Bush. No one really did anything to dislodge Kerry from his front-runner position and the only candidate that I felt did poorly was Wesley Clark. Clark, a retired General and recent member of the Democratic party, spent a majority of his allotted time explaining why he was a Democrat and attempting to diffuse the journalist panel's accusations that he is, in effect, a political carpet bagger. I think Clark's performance may allow Edwards a strong third place, strong enough that a win for Edwards in South Carolina could help to prolong the primary season beyond what we originally expected.
Click for full debate transcript
DNC Chariman Terry McAuliffe's goal of having the nomination sewn up by somebody by early March, in order to give that person more time to campaign against President Bush, may not be met. A longer campaign could benefit Dean, who has considerably more money than any of the other candidates. However, if Kerry continues to be seen as the front-runner he will find an easier time raising money, particularly after candidates start dropping out. We could be in for a long contest, but I think right now its Kerry's nomination to lose.
I'm currently in the process of codifying last night's debate in an attempt to determine how many questions were related to policy and how many to campaign strategy. I think the results could be interesting, and I'll post them as soon as I've got them. I'll include a methodology, but I'm leaning towrad using methodology similiar to what Thomas Patterson used in his book, Out of Order when he examined New York Times campaign stories to determine how many framed the campaign in terms of the horse race and how many stories were policy-driven. Stay Tuned
Tony
