Primary Pundit by Michael McCord

Best nominee for Secretary of State interview: Joe Biden who's clearly the smartest and most experienced and most passionate of the candidates who has been dwarfed by the Supernova Clinton/Edwards/Obama troika. He spoke coherently and forcefully about Iraq, Iran, and Darfur. Can you spell Janjaweed?

Best nominee for effective Traffic Cop: CNN's Wolf Blitzer can be insufferable at times (ok, more often than not) but he's gets my kudos for keeping the ball rolling. He wasn't exactly fair to all but hey that's life when you have eight massive political egos on one stage (speaking of the Stage which said top tier with the top tier troika given prominent placement in the middle. Think that was an accident?)

Best nominee for House Philosopher: He did better than the last debate in South Carolina but Barack Obama still seems ill-suited for this for format with his natural tendency to explain the mysteries of the universe. But he had two of the best fast-thinking comebacks -- telling John Edwards he was late to the Iraq war leadership gig and smacking down Blitzer for asking the yahoo 'English as official language' question. I said yahoo because of the 10,000 top priorities in the country, this is 10,001.

Best imitation of a Friendly Pit Bull -- In post-debate spin, Elizabeth Edwards said her husband had been "forthright" and "honest" but it was odd to watch John Edwards pick fights over relatively small slices of dispute. He tried everything he could to goad Clinton into admitting her war authorization vote of 2002 was wrong and a mistake but it only pushed her where she wanted to go -- as a uniter focused on the future to clean up Geroge Bush's mess.

Best examples of Cognitive Dissonance: Chrisopher Dodd is smart and has some real smart energy and global warming proposals but he lapses so easily into Senatorial speak patterns that he undermines his own good message. Bill Richardson seems to take two steps back after each step forward. His resume interview ad is a hoot and shows humor and spunk but then he goes on Meet the Press and then last night's debate, he tries to cram too much mumbo jumbo into one answer.

Best one-liner to make the Democrat base hoot with glee: Hillary Clinton's quip about the effectiveness of sending VP on diplmatic missions. "Not very diplomatic" she cracked.

Best no dessert after a skimpy dinner Scolds: Dennis Kucinich has the passion, idealism and smarts to become a Governor or Senator (has anyone else talked about turning the moral clock back to pre 9-11?) but his rants against his fellow Dems seem out of touch with political realities. Kucinch is the junior high straight A student who has all the answers and all the reasons why he is right and why the other straight A students are wrong. Mike Gravel has a Don Quixote routine going and actually spoke a harsh truth when it comes to gas prices -- they are high enough to hurt but not high enough to change consumption and conesrvation patterns necessary -- but he comes off as such a mad uncle brought in off the street.

Best portrayal of a President in Waiting: Hillary Clinton was the presence of the night. She was prepared, had the grace of floating above the frey and had the aura of someone who was smart and tough and by god, if people get to know her, they will like and vote for her.