Debating the Details

The first of two post-Super Tuesday debates took place last night in Texas. Debates are a great opportunity for candidates to hash out their policy positions and really get to the nitty-gritty, substantive details. Yet Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don't have much to debate in that arena. At this juncture in the Democratic primary, for voters, it is more about electing a candidate based on the type of leader they want, not really on the issues.

These candidates are virtually the same on every issue, making it difficult to have a real debate. There were only two minuscule differences discussed on the CNN/Univision debate stage.

The first was the difference that has been leading Clinton to say that Obama's health care plan would leave 15 million people uninsured- something that is not completely true. The difference between the two plans is that Clinton mandates everyone to buy health insurance. Obama's plan operates under the assumption that if people can afford insurance they will buy it. The only mandate is for parents to buy insurance for their children.

Personally, I think Obama won this portion of the debate when he discussed Massachusetts' mandated health care plan where people are still not able to afford health care and then have to pay fines on top of it because they don't have a plan. Fines would only be implemented in his system when people try to abuse the system by going to the hospital when they are sick without insurance, etc.

The other difference was that Obama said he would meet with the new leader of Cuba with a set agenda, but Clinton would only meet with the Raul Castro (or whoever the new leader is) if Cuba has already started democratizing. A fairly minor, somewhat unimportant distinction.
The next debate will probably be pretty boring because it will be the same thing again. These candidates don't have much to debate. I can't even imagine if they had the 5 or so that Hillary had wanted to have. Talk about a snooze-fest.

I think its safe to say neither candidate won or lost voters from their camps. They may have won over some independents- either Obama with his cool, confident, on-top-of-his-game air, or Hillary with her touching answer to the last question- but chances are swing voters weren't given any ammunition to make a decision if they were already on the fence.

Check out the Google News Results for other analysis of the debate.