Boy that was a pretty good debate...

All of the candidates addressed the questions with well thought out replies...

Some were obviously rehearsed, but I won't hold that against them...

After all, the campaign should be, in part, a rehearsal for the White House...

Some of the answers were long on detail but perhaps a bit short on substance...

And some rambled a bit...

But I see how everyone of the candidates got to where they are today...

Great job by our candidates...

Nothing I have seen by the GOP has even come close to the professionalism and thoughtfulness on display today in Iowa...

Every candidate on that stage this morning made me proud to be a democrat...

barely gave Gravel and Kucinich ANY questions or chances to respond. This was a really poorly done debate.

and I thought Bitzer was bad.

I was just listening to the answers as they were offered...

I know Gravel and DK didn't get much of a chance...

But I expected that and we should all expect that in the coming debates...

Is that right, no but it is reality...

All the candidates who spoke were convincing about the particular issue they were addressing...

That is why I saw this debate, the one more people probably watched than any other, as a good showing for the democratic party...

I would like to hear the same questions asked to the CONS and harped on like Stephano..does everytime he talks to the DEms. They usually stage the CONS debates with only questions on Iraq,taxes and abortion. THey always give the same staged answers just like a recording.

It seemed to me he did a better job with the Repugs, giving everyone enough talking time, although, now that I think of it, Tancredo took Staph (heh) to task for ignoring him. He ignored Kucinich pretty much today; even Gravel got more talk time. My conclusion is he was the lousiest moderator, even worse than Blitzer.

with a bone thrown to a couple more and a couple of drops of broth to the rest.

At the risk of repeating myself,

When the moderator gets more talking time than 3 of the candidates, I'd hardly call that a debate.

When two of the candidates got talking time in double digits, with the rest of the pack in single digits, and a whopping 8 minutes and 17 seconds between the candidate that got the least amount of time and the candidate that got the greatest, that's not a debate.

Why pretend that such a farce is a fair, open airing of candidates' positions and differences to allow voters to compare?

That's not a "debate." It's a campaign ad. The "winners" are those that were gifted with the most time air time, regardless of what they said.

Question about when you told less than the whole truth was answered by only one candidate. Question on pivotal moment answered by about two, maybe three. Answer on whether O was experienced enough answered (finally) directly by one (answer was no). Answer about H's divisiveness answered by none. Answer to whether would accept no lobbyist money was only answered by the candidates who are not. Answer to why any troops left in Iraq not answered by H or Biden who were asked.