The Democrats Take on Iran, China, and Illegal Immigration

All the Democratic presidential candidates except Bill Richardson gathered in Iowa this afternoon for a radio debate broadcast by National Public Radio. This debate was the first radio debate I can remember ever listening to; I think the all-aural limitation of radio as a medium makes for a somewhat different experience for both listeners and candidates. The atmosphere was certainly much more calm and staid than the last couple of Democratic TV debates I've watched; perhaps the debate format, in which candidates were not given strict time limits for their answers and in which only three major topics were addressed, contributed to this atmosphere as well as the medium. The candidates were no doubt more relaxed because they did not have face a live audience; furthermore, the listening audience for a Tuesday afternoon debate on NPR is probably not that large so perhaps the candidates felt less under the microscope today. Unfortunately, the time distribution in this debate was terrible. It was very much a Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards show, a reflection of the tight three-way race in Iowa at the moment. Thus, even though this was Mike Gravel's big comeback debate, I often found myself wondering if he was even present during long stretches of today's debate.

I noticed that Hillary Clinton did something clever early on in this debate that seemed to set the tone for the afternoon. By quoting previous remarks of Obama and Edwards on Iran, she sought to limit their ability to attack her without being particularly aggressive herself. This tactic seemed to work well; this debate wasn't very contentious at all...frankly, it tended a bit more towards "boring." To an extent, I felt like most of the candidates were handicapped by the topics discussed today. No Democrat is running on an Iran, China, and illegal immigration platform -- those aren't what I would really core issues for the Democratic candidates in 2008, but they were topical given the new intelligence assessment of Iran's nuclear program, the recent Chinese toy recalls, and the ongoing immigration debate. Apart from the eternal contrarian, Mike Gravel, the Democrats seemed to by-and-large agree on these issues: they urged a more conciliatory and diplomatic approach towards Iran, promised to be tougher on China especially on economic issues, and advocated immigration reform without deportation. This was quite a good slate of issues for Joe Biden, however, who loves discussing foreign policy. He sounded sharp today; this was definitely his kind of debate. Each of the other candidates not named Gravel struggled to distinguish his or her candidacy from the rest of the pack while at the same time largely agreeing with his or her rivals in the actual debate. Dennis Kucinich sought to do this by pointing out his consistency: his steadfast opposition to the Iraq war was adduced as evidence for his commitment to avoiding war elsewhere in the Middle East, and he also pointed out his record of continuing opposition to free trade with China. The rest of the candidates, I thought, were largely unsuccessful at distinguishing themselves from their opposition. After listening to the debate, I did feel like Obama had performed better than Clinton or Edwards, but I think that was a pretty subjective judgment made on the fly that I might very well change if I listened to the debate again or read a transcript.

Over the next few days, I plan to tackle each of the three issues the Democrats debated today in a separate blog post. Opinions and conclusions will be compared. Gravel will be mentioned with alarming regularity. Least importantly, I will write more than two blog posts this month.