The Backlash Against ABC

"The question of electability in the general election is the only one that matters anymore in the race for the Democratic nomination, and ABC's moderators did a good job because they kept that in mind. Gibson and Stephanopolous asked questions about the candidates' personal associations and the controversies surrounding some of their public positions (such as Obama's decision to stop wearing a flag lapel pin). When the questions did focus on substantial matters, they concerned things like the right to bear arms, affirmative action, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the capital-gains tax.

"Blogger Andrew Sullivan's reaction was typical of many -- he called it 'one of the worst media performances I can remember -- petty, shallow, process-obsessed, trivial where substantive, and utterly divorced from the actual issues that Americans want to talk about.' By those, he meant things like 'the environment . . . interrogation [of terror suspects] . . . [and] healthcare.' But ABC's debate was a success because it steered clear of issues like these, i.e. issues on which the candidates mostly agree. How many times have we heard Clinton and Obama argue endlessly over what amounts to a very minor difference in their health-care plans?"

What, you're not up for another 20 minutes on mandates?

Salon's Walter Shapiro likens the debate to a baaad cartoon:

"Broadcast to a prime-time network audience on ABC and devoid of a single policy question during its opening 50 minutes, the debate easily could have convinced the uninitiated that American politics has all the substance of a Beavis and Butt-Head marathon. If the debate was a dress rehearsal for the Oval Office, then the job of a 21st-century president primarily consists of ducking gotcha questions. As Obama rightly complained, deflecting a fatuous question about his seeming reluctance to don an American-flag pin, 'This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us from . . . figuring out how we get our troops out of Iraq and how we actually make our economy better for the American people.'

"This was not an evening that will shimmer in Obama's memory book. Facing a new-guy-on-the-block hazing from moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, Obama at times displayed a whiff of petulance at the steady assault of questions about the controversial sermons of his former minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his Chicago social connection to Bill Ayers, a semi-unrepentant alumni of the Weather Underground . . .

"But with the April 22 Pennsylvania primary less than a week away, Obama won the debate by the simple act of not losing."

Slate's John Dickerson runs through Obama's problems in the debate and then hits the brakes:

"I will now adjust my view of Obama's rough start to account for the personal weather system under which he apparently operates. Many things that looked like they would punish him during this campaign have not. Furthermore, it appears that he has made it through the initial aftermath of his ungainly remarks about Pennsylvania small-town folk without a slip in the polls.

"There was nothing that had the potential to wound like those remarks did, so Obama may yet not be damaged as much as a normal candidate ought. On the other hand, the sheer number of questions may make the next round of primary voters wonder about Obama's foundation. Or they might wonder how he could, with a straight face, decry Hillary Clinton for taking snippets of his remarks out of context and blowing them up, when he has done the same so expertly and so frequently with John McCain's claim about America's 100-year commitment to Iraq . . .

"It's an upside for Obama that Hillary Clinton isn't especially attractive when she's on the attack."

At the New Republic, Jonathan Cohn says the evening took a toll on Obama: