Dem Debate Derby (Liveblog!)

Tonight at 7:00 pm, the first debate of the 2008 Presidential campaign will air on MSNBC, featuring the polished posturing of no fewer than 8 Democratic candidates.

For purposes of this liveblog, let's try a minor variation of the "debate bingo" format.  Below are 15 phrases, gestures, or accents that will likely make their way into the 3 frontrunners' comments early and often.  The winner of the Debate Derby will be the candidate who makes his or her way through all of his or her respective checkpoints first.  In the unlikely event that none is able to complete the circuit, whichever candidate has made the most progress by the end of the debate will be declared the winner.

Each candidate faces 10 unique and 5 shared checkpoints, their progress through which will be tracked throughout the debate.

Panderers, take your marks...

Pregame:  Elizabeth Edwards is currently co-anchoring the MSNBC pre-game show with Chris Matthews (and she's already banged out at least two of the items on her husband's list).  So basically this channel has given up even pretending to be objective, right?  Try to imagine the furor if FNC had Ann Romney co-anchoring exclusive coverage of a GOP debate.

Pregame:  It's just so jarring when Olbermann attempts to wax intellectual.  He just used the word "atraditional" (with that every-syllable-emphasis of his) to describe the backgrounds of 4 of the 8 candidates.  How about "nontraditional", professor?

7:04  Hillary got close during her first at-bat with "young men and women".  Eh, let's give her credit.

7:09  Edwards apparently won't be hitting any of the words on his list, since he's too busy repeating the word "trust" every few seconds.

7:17  Despite being the first candidate to flout the time restrictions, Barack's still coming up empty.

7:22  In a quizzical ramble about hedge funds lifting people up and figuring out how to solve societal ills, Silky Pony gets on the board with "minimum wage".

7:27  Best debate response I've seen in a long time, from Joe Biden.  A one-word answer to a loaded, leading yes-or-no question about his verbosity.

7:30  Ugh - Gravel is trying way too hard to be the Robin Williams of the bunch.

7:32  Hillary hits a double with "Universal healthcare" and "Climate change".

7:41  Hillary rolls through another wicket with a question on "Virginia Tech".   (What was with her referring to Cho as "the shooter, as he's being called"?)

7:44  I'm being told by the judges that we're also going to give Hillary credit for "My husband" for her reference to "Bill" and "the Clinton Administration".

7:45  Edwards nabs "universal healthcare".  Obama failed to grab it, despite laying out his comprehensive plan to socialize American medicine.

7:48  Orf, Hillary's trying to stand on her own shoulders extolling the grandeur of Hillarycare 1.0, blaming the fact that America rejected it on the insurance companies for befouling her majestic plan.

7:53  Mistakes about healthcare and believing the President that he would let the inspectors finish their jobs in Iraq were the two areas Hillary just identified as the biggest political mistakes she's made in the last 4 years.

7:54  On the same question, Edwards identified his Iraq War vote as his biggest mistake in the last 4 years.  Can any of these candidates count?  I'm sure the question's timeframe was quite deliberate.  It's equivalent to asking "What's been your biggest political mistake since the Iraq War began?"

7:58  Edwards is nipping at Hillary's heels now, notching up several "carbon" mentions and a "climate change" to boot, earning him the "global warming" badge.

8:00  Richardson just stole "Apollo-like" from Hillary.  She might've gotten a chance to voice it herself, but Richardson was such a time hog, they had to bail on the question.

8:02  I thought Obama was about to give us "Darfur" or "Djibouti" as he danced the "Iraq is a distraction from [fill in the blank]" dance.  Interesting that he just recycled his own "neither our enemy nor our ally" line about China.  That's what he likes to say about Russia.

8:10  Show-of-hands question:  "Do you believe there's such thing as a Global War On Terror?"  Only three hands went up (well, plus Gravel's, but it went up late and slow; I'm not sure he knows where he is anymore).  The 3 hands belonged to Clinton, Dodd and Richardson.  Incredible.  Only Kucinich was asked to explain, which he managed to avoid doing.

8:16  Another show-of-hands:  "Is anyone willing to join Kucinich in impeaching Cheney?"  0 hands.  Denny just pulled out the handy pocket Constitution, which he claims to tote around with him regularly.  By a show of hands, who believes him?

8:24  Gore would've cleaned up (no pun intended) if he were part of this spectacle.  Two questions in a row about the environment and almost universally, candidates have pivoted and run back to terrorism and Iraq.  No one wants to talk about the environment anymore.  Obama gave a throwaway about planting trees, then, when Williams suggested he change his answer to lightbulbs, mentioned lightbulbs.

8:26  Ahh, here's the one mildly interesting moment in this nearly pulseless debate.  Barack seemed to recognize that Williams is guarding the clock and speaking order sheepishly and began an actual foreign policy back-and-forth with Kucinich, punctuated with a dismissive pat on the head for the daft curmudgeonly Gravel when he tried to chime in about Obama wanting to nuke the world.

8:27  Total ball drop by Edwards.  "Who do you consider to be your moral leader?"  Long pause, followed by an acknowledgment that he couldn't think of an answer.  Then, suddenly... God!   Also his wife.  Oh and all human beings who have no one to speak for them.  Smooth.  This man is a wildly successful trial lawyer?

And that pretty much wraps it up.

Hillary wins the Derby, with Edwards coming in a close second.  No one wins the debate itself, though Obama probably did the best job performing the way he wanted to.  Lay very low, stay away from typical talking points that his opponents would've been prepared to rebut, and throw in a little vim and vigor toward the end, ideally by picking a fight with the nuttiest and most marginalized candidates on the stage.  Denny and Gravel fit that bill nicely.