Last nights debate probably won’t change much in the Democratic race. I did notice two major opportunities missed for Clinton though which continues to speak about her lack of ability to strike at him.

The first concerned mandating health care. Clinton and Obama are in a fued about whether or not people should be forced into a system if they don’t want to pay in, basically if it is Universal Health Care or not. Obama believes that even if you don’t mandate everyone will want to have it. Clinton says different. Obama’s major belief against it the mandate is that you would have to penalize people who refused by garnishing their wages etc. and that isn’t nice.

The problem? In a previous debate Obama said if people didn’t get health care under his plan but went to an emergency room, they would be liable for penalties and possibly back payments for receiving treatment and from my understanding that person would be put on a plan from that point on. So basically, it is the same plan as Clinton’s only she forces you to go on it from the state and Obama penalizes you when you are actually sick and receive treatment. She didn’t hit him on that in the last debate though.

Clinton hit him on this point quickly last night and then tried to extend the argument. However she did an amazingly poor job of getting to the fundamental, which is that there is no difference and he penalizes people too, instead made it seem like he was doing what was politically easy as opposed to what is right. This is the problem, it is a complicated issue, Clinton needs to actually explain it in simple terms. Say “so you want to charge sick people later on, I want to make sure they always had the health care in the first place and could go to the doctor of their choice. Under your plan a dying mother has to pay a fine for wanting to live.” Bam, see how easy that was? She never hits him like that.

Obama has a better line of attack, he often basically says “you are forcing people to join”. Everyone understand that and no one likes to be forced. Clinton needs to break her arguments down better.

- The second was on meeting with world leaders without “preconditions”. Clinton says she won’t do it, they have to meet preconditions that show they are interested in Democracy. Obama said earlier and again last night he doesn’t believe in preconditions. Instead he believes in “preparation”. In explaining his “preparations” or “homework” he basically laid out a series of pre-conditions. Clinton should have jumped all over this and said something like, well sorry I didn’t realize you had non-pre-condition-pre-conditions in your plan. Obama made absolutely no sense with his answer and Clinton just let it go.

The other part to that is Obama said he would make certain gestures like easing up trade restrictions ahead of a meeting. Clinton could have had another score with this. You see, world leaders like Hugo Chavez would LOVE a one-on-one meeting with the President. It adds a huge amount of legitimacy to their presidency and gives them the chance to do all kinds of PR with it. You don’t need to make any gestures. The president meeting with them is the biggest gesture. Easing restrictions is a potential bargaining chip you have ONCE you sit down with them, not before.

If you planned on easing those restrictions anyway you can give them something you don’t care about for something else, like releasing political prisoners in their country.

The problem is, missed opportunities and her inability to form great arguments against Obama that resonate with voters, only go to show her experience is not a wonderful asset at this point.