i need to process

Ray is in bed and I just finished watching the recording of the Democratic debate in CA. Despite being a huge Barack fan, I feel like Clinton "won". I'd like to see a stat that they put up in football - time of possession. It sure seemed like Hillary talked A LOT more than Obama.

I have mixed reactions to that. First, she did seem to skirt the questions in her answers. There are huge, complex issues involved, so it would be hard to be brief. But, it felt beyond that in Clinton's case. Felt like she was intentionally obfuscating the matter at hand much of the time - losing sight of the question in order to say what she wanted to say. Typical campaigning I guess.

Second, in her long answers that seemed to not get to the point of the question, she did come across as one who has a depth & breadth of knowledge and experience. This is the experienced candidate, ready from day one Hillary. And in that regard, she seemed the better candidate of the two. (let me just add that the English teacher in me cringed every time they used the superlative rather than the comparative adjective - I am the best candidate for the Dems, with only two persons, better is correct!)

OK, so back to my processing. The point where Obama got me to raise my head and shoulders off the pillow and point at the screen, was when he said his opposition to the war from the beginning was indicative of a distinctly different mindset. I found myself wishing he would hammer that distinctly different mindset issue home more often. It is the mindset that is reflected in his soaring "victory" speeches. It is the mindset that I see revealed in his book "The Audacity of Hope".

I think he could have elevated himself as the better of the two by drawing attention to his fundamentally different mindset. I wish he would have said more about his mindset tonight when he had a national audience prior to Super Tuesday. It is his distinctly different mindset that appeals to me most, it is what reflects his message of substantive change -

Time for bed.