I enjoyed the boos and applause in last nights debate. Every campaign as well as the media are trying to distort it to their liking. “This candidate got more applause and more boos, that candidate got silence” etc.

I thought Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama all were about the same. They all received both applause and skepticism. Obama probably walked away with the least amount of negative or flat reaction while Clinton walked away with the loudest applause and one moment of heavy boos when she went after Obama. Kucinich got the most sustained applause and was rewarded for almost everything he said. I don’t recall if he was booed or greeted with silence at all.

Dodd actually was booed quite a few times but the biggest tells of the night went to John Edwards.

Edwards, as far as I could tell, really got shut out. He hit a softball out of the park during the most touching moment of the night when a man on crutches asked about Health Care and told his personal story to a standing ovation. Other than that he was treated with a lot of silence. He would raise his voice and emote to the audience and just get nothing in return. He was out-shined by Kucinich who took the very far left position on every issue and gave the audience what they wanted. That was supposed to be Edward’s job and he was overshadowed.

His worst mistake was going after Clinton. Obama started the night ready to go and to his credit quickly saw the response Edwards received. Obama took his digs at Clinton but they were not as overt and were part of a larger narrative. You could see Obama struggled for a little while trying to find his tone. Then he gave an answer he had in his head “I find it amusing that those who help to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in a generation are now criticizing me for making sure we’re on the right battlefield” and from that point on he found his groove.

Edward’s though, wow, crash and burn. I’ve seen some people in commentary try and be nice to him but I seriously believed it was an enormous failure of a performance. Obama left Edwards out to dry most of the night and I seriously would not be surprised if Edwards starts turning on him in the coming weeks. His campaign is getting desperate and he needs movement fast.

All in all I thought this was the best debate we’ve seen so far.