Reply #5: I watched the debates twice.......

[FrenchieCat]

and initially I thought that Clinton and Edwards had outperformed the others.

However, on replay, I found a totally different conclusion. I realized then that if Obama is the nominee, that guy is really smart as hell. What I saw was intelligence not surpassed by any candidate on that stage. He was able to articulate in less words exactly what the others would drone on about, and he usually spoke first (especially when they were talking about Foreign affairs/Pakistan). They said basically the same thing Obama did, he just said it better and with more confidence. He "owned" all that he spoke. He rarely said "as President, I would...."...he consistently simply stated what needs to be done or what he had already been working on. It was fascinating on 2nd view....because there was so much I didn't pick up the first time around. He was calm, cool, articulate, humorous, confident, pensive and certainly the leader in the room....

of course, IMO.