I noticed how many of the Democrats in office (Biden, Clinton, Obama) were way to CASUAL about conceding to Blitzer that Iraq would still being going on in 2009.

The Democratic calculus is that as long as Iraq is still going on it hurts the Republicans politically, and helps the Democrats.

I guess that the Democratic candidates actually want Iraq over with, many don't care if it's not over by 2008, because the calculus is that it helps them politically.

Meanwhile, the Republicans will be trying to push ownership of the war onto the Democrats to blame them for it in 2008.

Clinton and Biden in particular, and Obama to a lesser extent were way to accepting of Blitzer's question about nothing having changed by 2009 because "Hillary Calculation" doesn't really mind it if Iraq is still an issue in 2008. The political calculus is that it's good for Democrats and bad for Republicans. The Republican's is that they have to make it bad for Democrats.

Meanwhile, it's bad for the country and the troops.

Ed - I think Gravel's comment was alluding to his National Initiative for Democracy.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich said the war on Iraq should not just be blamed on Bush, but on the Congress that authorized it. U.S. troops "never should have been sent there in the first place," he said. Rather than debate timetables and benchmarks, the Democratic-controlled Congress should "just say no money, the war's over," he said. Kucinich called on other debate partners who were members of Congress to remember that voters had given Democrats control of both House and Senate last November largely in response to opposition to the war.

I guess it was too much to hope that any of the candidates thought that environmental issues with the potential to cause global civilizational collapse and even possible human extinction might be a top priority.

I agree that the war in Iraq is also important. I just don't like to see it as center stage above all else. We've already caused a mass extinction greater than the one that removed the non-avian dinosaurs, and possibly larger than the prior record-holder 250 million years ago. How many more beautiful species must die? Must we be among them? It would certainly be deserved.

It's obvious to me that Gravel is "turning" to the other candidates on the stage and saying: "You're in control of Congress. If you want the war to stop, show the leadership necessary to make it stop, like you promised you would when running for election 8 months ago."
What don't you understand about that?

The debates were completely unbalanced with Hillary and Barack hogging up most of the time at around 9 minutes each during the first half of the debate - Kucinich and Gravel each Only received about 2 minutes each. Wolf Blitzer took a nice 8 minutes and some change for himself - and nobody gives a damn what he thinks. Looks like dice are loaded again and we're going to have another fixed election. I'm looking for a Gravel/Kucinich ticket - if the Dems can't manage that - I'm going for Ron Paul.

It's great go get all this info about the Dems but can we get a little info on what the Republicans are promising to their constituency? Even if MJ readers are all Democrats, which they aren't, knowing thine enemy would be a good thing...