4 Thoughts on the Dem Debate

Matt Lewis | August 08, 2007 8:26 AM

So I watched a bit of the Democrat debate last night, and here are some random thoughts ...

1. Much has been made over Hillary Clinton's line: "I'm your girl." This morning on MSNBC, Chuck Todd speculated that she was targeting female union members with this line. That may or may not be true, but I think the line might actually appeal to

men. Here's why: No feminist would ever refer to herself as a "girl." Could this line be part of her attempt to feminize herself???

2. If the "I'm your girl" line was meant to feminize Hillary, then the venue was working against her. As Frank Luntz noted on FOX this morning, Hillary comes off bad when she has to yell. In this regard, the open-air venue (Soldier Field) did not work to her advantage.

3. Is there some sort of weird relationship between Hillary and Joe Biden? On several occasions she said things like "amen" to Joe Biden's responses. And then, Biden would go after Obama and Edwards, while not mentioning Hillary (and just look how close they are standing in the above picture) ...

4. So once again, the big argument of the night was over Pakistan. Hillary makes the argument that, even if going in to Pakistan were smart, it's dangerous for a presidential candidate to telegraph it, because this rhetoric may have consequences (such as undermining President Musharraf). But Obama employed a bit of jujitsu, arguing that this debate should not be kept secret -- or reserved for "Washington insiders." In short, he played to the crowd by making the case that the American people should be allowed to be in on this debate, too.