Clinton fails to knock out Obama in Debate

With Obama beginning to overtake or close the gap between himself and Clinton in both Ohio and Texas, two absolute MUST wins for Clinton, there was an expectation that she really needed to score a knockout during the debate in Texas tonight.

If that was the need, then from where I sat watching, Clinton failed to score. Clinton had her best moments during the discussion on healthcare where she is obviously the strongest, but seriously failed to make strong distinctions between the two in the rest of the issues. She had plenty of opportunities to speak to the substantive differences between her and Obama, but failed to take advantage of the openings, or was simply unable to exploit them.

To a large degree there was absolutely nothing new exposed in the positions of either candidate, and anyone expecting Clinton to change strategy to attempt to blunt the Obama momentum came away with nothing to hang on.

As far as how I saw Obama perform in the debate, he seemed much more relaxed, and in control of the discussions on substance and rhetoric. Remembering back to the early debates, where Clinton seemed dominant, and Obama looked like the novice, I was stricken by how much more composed Obama is now and Clinton seemed the more tentative. From my comfy chair perspective, Obama had his best debate of all of them, and it came when he could benefit from his performance the most.

The biggest plus for me in the debate was the fact that Wolf Blitzer was not moderating it.