I've just come back from a panel discussion given by representatives of the various candidates at Columbia University (and sponsered by the College Democrats). As I often think that the behavior of the men on the ground is rather telling of both the state of the campaign as a whole, and what talking points are being handed round, I thought I'd put down my thoughts on the various performances.
Clark
Clark's campaign sent
Alex Rabb, the deputy campaign director for NY. Whenever I've come in contact with the Clark campaign so far, I've always come away underwhelmed, from the very first time when I saw Clark speak at a DNC event after the New York debate. This was no exception. The only representative that had to refer questioners to the website for policy positions. While I'm glad Mr. Rabb didn't want to give possibly innaccurate answers, you should be able to broadly sketch things like your candidate's AID's or foreign policy, especially when you're allowed to refer to notes. This is the kind of performance I'd expect from an enthusiastic articulate supporter, not the deputy director for a large and strongly Democratic state.
Otherwise a fairly respectable performance, unfortunately, perhaps due to his unfortunate placement at the table (between the Kerry and Dean men, and never the first to answer a question), often reduced to "Me too!" like statements.
I'm also a bit miffed that he dodged a part of my question about the ICC, as I'd be quite interested in hearing Clark's opinion as a former general, but that's my personal nit to pick.
Edwards
Was billed as being represented by the New York campaign Director Terence Tolbert, who oddly didn't show up, and whose absence even more oddly when completely unremarked.
Dean
Charles O'Byrne, I didn't catch exactly what his position was at the state level (reasonably high I'm assuming, but because of his connection to the Alumni Association, they've annoyingly used that to bill him rather than his actual position, thanks College Dems), also a national advisor and speechwriter. Mr. O'Byrne, was frankly a little longwinded, but hit nicely on Dean's track record, though he did bring up the special-interest line, which has never come across well for me. The most detailed on policy positions of all the representatives. Took a swipe at Kerry about special interest that I don't think goes over that well, needs to be dropped or retooled in my opinion. Very much wanting to make this a two-man discussion between Dean and Kerry. I think also very much representative of Dean's educated middle/upper class support, which I suspect probably helped to some extent with this audience.
As a side note, the Dean supporting students, who have been going strong for as long as I've been here (since September) are looking seriously haggard these days, and look to have lost even a few of their core organizers. Which makes me wonder why, as another long-term Dean supporter, I don't seem to be taking this as hard. I wonder if for the folks for whom Dean is their first campaign, or their first campaign in a while, the disapointment of the first few primaries has been more acute than for those of us who see it as the latest of several campaigns (I was just in time to cut my teeth on Gore in 2000). Though that leads to a certain chicken and egg speculation, do we take it better because we have done multiple campaigns and seen defeat, or have we seen multiple campaigns because we cope with defeat better. But I digress.
Kerry
Frankly, I don't think Kerry's campaign did themselves any favors by sending Assemblyman Earl Scott, and I say this as someone for whom Kerry has been a strong second choice for months. The talking points for Kerry's campaign obviously read 'Electability' and not much else, and Assemblyman Scott was sticking to them a stubbornness that was almost admirable. He managed to get through both his opening comments and his first question without mentioning anything else, a feat made more impressive given that the question was (roughly) "What positions or qualities other than electability does Kerry hold which make him an attractive candidate?". He also made the rather dubious decision of (perhaps unintentionally) pushing the idea that Kerry was boring, and that this was an attractive quality (You can't make this stuff up).
Aside from that, Scott's pitch was being made at the wrong level for the audience. I suspect that's a problem endemic to local politicians dealing with college students, who are rarely in the areas where they vote. Scott made a pitch that would have probably gone over well with his local constituents, made came off a tad flat with the more nationally based, and probably significantly more educated, college students in the audience. Honestly I think politicians need to become much better at pitching to and dealing with college students and other young adults, but this probably won't happen until we start voting in much larger numbers (sigh and the tyranny of the old fogies continues).
Kucinich
Kucinich's campaign sent New York City fundraising director Hugh Cosman. Mr. Cosman I think is indicative of the problem of candidates with limited support, the pool of talent they have access to is similarly limited, and Mr. Cosman was probably the least polished of the representatives. After the opening remarks, and as the question session progressed, he grew progressively less engaged, though perhaps this was in response to a somewhat tepid response to the Kucinich pitch. This progressed to the point where when answering a question on international treaties and organizations (yes, admittedly mine) he claimed Kucinich supported the whole list, which in fact included the WTO and NAFTA, which he'd been railing against only the question before.
On the whole the panel made it seem like a Dean-Kerry contest, especially with the absence of a voice for Edwards.