Democrats hold first debate, fight over who is more anti-war on Iraq.

Democrats spur over who is more Anti-Iraq War in first debate.

So, we have had our first of many presidential debatesas eight Democratic candidates held their first debate in what will be the longest presidential campaign in history Thursday night at South Carolina University.

I stomached as much of the debate as I could before I had to stop watching the “idiotic 8” bash President Bush and the Iraq war and talk about their plans for a socialized America. [watch debate here]

From what I saw Hillary Clinton did not have a successful night. She did not make any major mistakes, but I believe she must appear likeable and show the ability to get along with others. She failed to do that in this debate, all though she has plenty of time to become appealing.
Clinton continued to defend her initial vote to approve the U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying she did the best she could with the information she was given at the time. “If I knew then what I know now, I would not have voted that way,” she said, insisting that “the question is, what do we do now?”

This is a position she has held for a while now. I would just like to point out the President made the decision with the same information that she had.

One mistake she may have made is promising for a complete withdrawal from Iraq if she is president.. “If this president does not get us out of Iraq, when I’m president I will,” she said.

I thought Barack Obama had a real good debate and if I had to pick a winner he is it. Mainly because people expected him to look inexperienced and he proved many wrong holding his own against much more experienced rivals.

Although I do not agree with Obama’s position on Iraq I have the most respect for his position than any of the other candidates.

“I opposed this war from the start because I thought it would lead to the disastrous conditions that we have seen,” he said, but he said he could not vote to cut off funding for troops once they were in the field.

I believe this position is going to help Obama with many moderate democrats.

Biden did a very good job as well. He was able to talk about foreign policy with some level of economy and sounded more wise than other Democrats running calling for the United States to decentralize its control of Iraq and share the nation’s oil wealth. Which may be one of the best plans I have heard from a Democrat candidate.

Chris Dodd probably had the best answers for the amount of time given but I do not think he can win the base of the party. He is to moderate, he did not call for an immediate withdrawal of troops and advocated for a more restrained approach of sending no more troops to Iraq. He later told Chris Matthews “The policy has failed and we need a new strategy if we’re to have any hope of stabilizing Iraq,” Dodd is probably the candidate that I like best…if I was forced to choose one of the eight.

John Edwards had a horrible performance in my opinion. He could not come up with an answer for who he thought was a moral leader. I actually counted at least 5 seconds of silence and then he could not pick one leader finally going with his lord, his wife and his father. That will cost him with southern Democrats who already do not like him.

The rest of the field is really not even worth mentioning.

Overall, I still think Hillary remains the front runner, but Obama gained some ground on her. Edwards may have been the biggest loser, but he will bounce back. He is to good of a politician not too. Biden just may be the dark horse to watch in this primary. Only time will tell, and 9 months is a whole lot of time.