Mittmentum! Okay, wrong party. Back to debate blogging.
9:13 PM … Russert gets self-righteous and tries to keep the debate on racial issues and Obama’s drug use. Candidates try mightily to redirect the conversation.
9:19 PM … Pretty solid questions at this point. Starting off with who’s more racist and now what Obama’s position on the ‘likable’ crack at the last debate. And we haven’t even gotten back to Russert yet!
9:20 PM … Now we’re on to whether Obama and Edwards tag teamed Hillary in the last debate. And like I said, we’re not even back to Russert yet.
9:24 PM … Candidates agree that they like each other and that Russert is a pretentious blowhard.
9:28 PM … Edwards said he had to fight to survive from infancy.
9:29 PM … Amazingly, Russert actually asked a decent question with this, what’s your best and worst qualities question. Not particularly substantive and no clear relationship to anything to do with the presidency, but not clearly outrageous or stupid and generated some interesting answers.
(Non-debate-update: 24% reporting and Rudy — 3% — just ahead of uncommitted — 2%.)
9:35 PM … Okay, first commercial break. I confess that I’m troubled by the generally sane and reasonable tenor of the debate. After Russert’s initial lame questions they’ve gotten a little better. Honestly, I think the candidates’ answers have been, while not transcendent, actually reasonable and well-spoken. I can only conclude that this means that Russert is preparing to get on his hobbyhorse about a bunch of topics he has no real command of.
