The Nevada Debate: Obama Versus Clinton Versus Edwards

It sure has been a long week. One would think that it was a month ago that Senator Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire Democratic primary in a surprise upset that no one in the mainstream media seemed to foresee.

All of the polls showed Barack Obama eight to ten points ahead, but Hillary Clinton pulled it out, surprising both Obama's campaign, and her own.

It has been a week full of he said, she said, but tonight Senator Barack Obama, who won in Iowa and finished a very close second in New Hampshire, and Senator Hillary Clinton, who finished third in Iowa and narrowly beat Obama in New Hampshire, faced each other for the first time in public since last week's primary. Senator John Edwards, who came in second in Iowa and third in New Hampshire, wanted to show the American people that he's still in the race.

I was prepared to see these three go at it. Not tooth and nail, not going for the throat, but I did expect slight jabs here and there, especially in the portion of the debate where the candidates get to ask each other questions. Instead, Obama apologized to Clinton for his campaign's mistakes concerning the leaked memo and explained to the American people that there are times when some campaign workers get overzealous and do things that the candidates would never do.

All agreed that the campaign should not be about race or gender, and then there was a lot of time that showed the candidates confirming that there is no difference between any of their policies.

During the candidate on candidate question and answer, we saw Edwards give Obama a chance to explain his campaign contributions, we saw Hillary ask Obama to cosponsor a bill blocking Bush's pact with Iraq, to which he agreed, and we saw Obama give up his question to clarify that there is no difference between any of their positions on the Iraq war, that all three plan to have all combat troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term in office and that the only troops that would remain would be to protect the embassies and small police forces to strike any Al-Qaeda bases that may pop up.

The rest of the debate continued much as the first half, with a few jabs by Edwards concerning campaign contributions. It is unclear, to this viewer, if there was anything resembling a clear winner tonight.