Reply #14: Thanks a lot for the link. I've been looking for a transcript

[creeksneakers2]

From what I could read, all of the candidates got lots of applause, including Edwards. According to the transcript no candidates were booed except Edwards and Kucinich. The transcript doesn't indicate a crowd that gave all their applause just to Hillary or who booed everything Edwards said on cue.

Kucinich was booed when he called Edwards a trial lawyer. If the audience was stacked against Edwards, it doesn't make sense that the booed when Edwards was attacked.

There were two incidents of Edwards being booed.

Here he suggests Clinton is a corporate Democrat and likened her to a corporate Republican, an insult:

"I spoke earlier about the difference between corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans and how critical it is for us to give the power in the democracy back to the American people so we can give a better life to our children, as 20 generations before us have done.

And my point is, some of us have taken a different approach to that. Senator Clinton defends the system, takes money from lobbyists, does all those things. And my point is simply that people have" -- (chorus of boos)

Here Edwards suggests that his changes of positions are OK but its different when Clinton does it because her changes are close together and therefore not genuine. The audience perceives this as Edwards using a different standard for Hillary than he does for himself:

MR ROBERTS: But Senator, you have changed your position on several issues. You were for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository before you were against it. You were for the Iraq war before you were against it. People change their positions. If it's fair for you to change your position, is it not fair for her to change hers? (Applause.)

SEN. EDWARDS: It's absolutely fair. But -- (applause) -- it's absolutely fair for people to learn from their experience and grow and mature and change. Anybody who's not willing to change based on what they learn is ignorant, and everybody ought to be willing to do that.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there's a difference between that and saying exact -- saying two contrary things at exactly the same time. I mean, for example, just over the course of the last week, Senator Clinton said in Washington that she would vote for the Peru trade deal -- (boos)

A question from Mr Roberts that sounded like it was directed toward Hillary was booed. That was an audience reaction to all the focus being placed on Hillary. Roberts calmed the crowd by promising the question was for somebody else.

I looked at Obama on You Tube and only found two videos. There was jeering in one video, but it didn't occur until the question about health care kept going back and forth between Clinton and Obama, and there were interruptions and two talking at once. The audience, like in the other incident had a hostile reaction to too much of the debate centering on Hillary. That's understandable after the farce Russert ran as the last debate.

When I look at the whole thing it looks much more like the journalists and bloggers described it - hostile reactions to negative campaigning. That's a much simpler and more likely explanation than one that includes a big conspiracy.