I’m back from the beach and overloaded with work for the next few days. I missed the Democratic Debate on CNN/YouTube and for those readers who also missed the debate, CNN has the transcript here. It’s amazing to see what a phenomena YouTube has become in such a short time. Who would have thought during the last presidential election, that there would be a debate hosted by anything like YouTube. Just goes to show the power of the internet[s].

The N.Y. Times reports the debate format was “novel” but it was still the “same old candidates.” I think by now we’ve all got the clue… We are stuck with what we’ve got. Although some still wish that other candidates would jump in, it appears the pool is set and Hillary Clinton, as the latest poll shows, is still on the top. But, of course anything can change, as I have said here many times in recent weeks. Political Wire has numbers on the Dem’s performance tonight, reporting that the “SurveyUSA instant poll of Americans who watched the CNN-YouTube Democratic presidential debate, found that those who thought Sen. Hillary Clinton would make the best president before the debate were even more convinced after it finished.”

The WaPo chimed in on the debate format saying “Democratic presidential candidates shared the spotlight Monday night with ordinary citizens from around the country in a two-hour debate that featured sharp and sometimes witty video questions and often equally sharp exchanges among the candidates on issues ranging from Iraq and health care to whether any of them can fix a broken political system.” And Chris Cillizza has a wrap-up here.

Andrew Sullivan said he thought the debate “was a big success as a concept,” and he noted, “If you’re sick of people like me on television, or worse, then the direct questions from regular voters and non-voters must have been a breath of extremely fresh air (there’s another asthmatic metaphor).”

Politics TV has videos up from the debate. One video is of Hillary responding to a question on whether she considers herself a liberal. Clinton, prefers to be labeled a progressive:

I think most liberals consider themselves to be progressives as well. Hillary is aiming for a wider appeal that will turn off moderates and independents with the liberal label. Sad but true. But hey, looking at all the Dem candidates, each and every one is far more liberal than what we’ve got now. Let’s just make sure we get one of them into the White House in ‘08.

Last but not least in the Late Night thread… The WaPo reports that a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that most “Americans see President Bush as intransigent on Iraq and prefer that the Democratic-controlled Congress make decisions about a possible withdrawal of U.S. forces.”

There’s more in the blogosphere at Connecting The Dots, The Gun Toting Liberal, The Pollster, Open Left, and Morra Aarons (Kerry ‘04 campaign) chimes in on BlogHer. Memeorandum has all the buzz.

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