Chavez voted out.

Drudge reports an exit poll.

The NYT says: "Voting, and then the counting, appeared likely to continue well into the night."

ADDED: WaPo says "Hugo Chavez wins Venezuela presidential vote, electoral council says."

"I don't care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead."

Says Hugo Chavez, creating a new time zone for Venezuela, setting the clocks back half an hour.

Science and Technology Minister Hector Nacarro praised the measure.

"I see it as a very positive thing that while there is light we can be in it," he said.

And President Chavez said earlier this year that schoolchildren would arrive for lessons with more energy as a result of the change.

"These children have to get up at five in the morning... they arrive at school dead tired. And why? Because of our time."

Fiendish time! It's ruining everything!

Actually, this isn't the only half-hour-off time zone:

Canada's Newfoundland province is half-an-hour out of step with other Atlantic provinces.

Pakistan is only half-an-hour behind India, while Nepal is a mere 15 minutes ahead of its large southern neighbour.

Western Australia and South Australia observe a 90-minute time difference across the state boundary.

However, the remote border town of Eucla and the surrounding area, home to a few hundred people, operates on its own time zone, 45 minutes ahead of Western Australia and 45 minutes behind South Australia.

"The expression 'why don't you shut up?' has become a popular slogan."

"On Monday, Caracas was full of posters. Student protesters have adopted it as their chant, and you can find various cartoons, songs and ringtones alluding to the subject on the web. I would love to be able to defend Chavez and feel offended by the king's remarks, but I can't! The king said what most of us have wanted to say for a long time. We have been listening to his diatribes every Sunday, which go for hours and hours... When he insults anyone who is not with him, when he humiliates our student protesters... We all want to say 'why don't you shut up?'"

So what do people really think of what the King Juan Carlos of Spain said to Hugo Chavez?

Obama calls Hillary "Bush-Cheney lite."

One more thing that tips me toward Clinton! Bush-Cheney lite sounds like just about what we need. Clinton declares the epithet "silly," but I think that secretly she knows the comparison helps her in some quarters.

And Obama came out with that in the context of trying to justify what was in fact a major gaffe at the debate:

In South Carolina and during a visit to New Hampshire earlier in the day, Obama compared Clinton to Bush because, he said, she has said she will not have unconditional meetings with foreign enemies.

He told the College Democrats that her approach showed "stubbornness" and in New Hampshire he referred to her as "Bush-Cheney lite."

"Stubbornness"? As opposed to what? Giddy impetuousness?

Clinton's retort:

"I've been called a lot of things in my life but I've never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney certainly," she said. "We have to ask what's ever happened to the politics of hope?"

Oh, come on. He's overflowing with hope! Hope that Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and Iran will play nice. Hope that saying Clinton is like Bush will cause voters to recoil in horror...

Clinton, best in the debate, and best in the after-debate.

I think in these last two days it's become clear that Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' best candidate. In the most significant moment of the debate, the candidates were asked "[W]ould you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?"



Obama immediately says "I would," not really noticing the detail to the question. He'd meet "without preconditions"? He goes on to plug in some material, which he will use in the after-debate period about how wrong Bush has been to think that "not talking to countries is punishment to them."

Clinton gets a lucky break when the questioner, who's in the audience, is given a chance at a follow up and throws the question to Clinton. I think Clinton had seen her opportunity the instant Obama said "I would," and here, with the chance to speak next, she deftly takes full advantage:

Well...

A disarming "well," as if this isn't going to be word-for-word perfect...

I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are.

I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration.

And I will pursue very vigorous diplomacy.

And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.

Live-blogging, I say "this is the precise point in the debate where I conclude... that Clinton is the superior candidate." But as impressive as this is, her campaign also deserves credit for forefronting this interchange the day after the debate, and Obama must take a second downgrade for the way he handled the after-debate.

Listen to him struggle through this interview with Iowa's Quad-City Times. Now, let's look at the coverage in today's newspapers.

The Boston Globe:

Yesterday, Obama's campaign tried to clarify his remarks by saying that he wouldn't agree to meet with such leaders before lower-level diplomatic work was done. But Clinton's campaign seized on their divergent answers, arguing that it exposes both her command of world affairs and Obama's greenness. "Senator Clinton is committed to vigorous diplomacy but understands that it is a mistake to commit the power and prestige of America's presidency years ahead of time by making such a blanket commitment," her campaign wrote in a memo.

Obama's campaign put out its own memo yesterday saying his is the approach that would keep America safe.

"Obama's tough but smart approach to America's diplomacy is exactly the kind of change and new thinking that excites voters about an Obama presidency," the memo said. His campaign also pointed to a remark Clinton made this spring in which she said, "I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people."

Clinton's campaign yesterday also employed former secretary of state Madeleine Albright to speak to reporters about Clinton's knowledge of diplomacy and the appropriate use of American power. "When all is said and done she knows that being president is about protecting the country and advancing national security interests," Albright said, adding that Clinton shows "a very sophisticated understanding of the whole process."

So Obama falls back on his mantra "change," showing his dreadful tendency to rely on abstractions and generic hope messages. He's gotten on a long way with such material, when speaking to admiring crowds of people who are just getting to know him. But it's horribly inadequate to fight off a formidable opponent on a specific issue.

And his attempt to catch Clinton in a contradiction could only work if we lacked the most basic powers of discernment. So Clinton said it's "a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people"? It can be wrong both to say "I won't talk" and to say "I will talk." The position Clinton took at the debate was that talks had to be planned and developed through a diplomatic process. She's rejecting both hardcore positions: promises to talk "without preconditions" and intransigent refusals to talk.

The Daily News:

Political observers said they expected Clinton to waste no time using Obama's comment to shore up her standing among key voter blocs, such as Cuban-Americans in bellwether Florida and Jewish voters who may find the idea of a sitdown with the Holocaust-denying president of Iran disturbing.

Team Clinton plans "to use these issues in outreach in the states [and nationally] with Jewish leadership and Jewish grass-roots voters," a Democratic operative familiar with the Clinton campaign told the Daily News.

Obama's camp said that approach wouldn't impress anybody. "There is a smallness to such misleading attacks that voters reject," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton....

In a race where Obama has presented himself as the fresher face, the exchange handed Clinton the perfect opening to "prove she's more experienced and would provide a steadier hand at the helm of the ship of state," said Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf.

To push that message, the Clinton campaign swiftly arranged a morning press call with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who didn't attack Obama directly but called the New York senator "a person who understands how the American presidency works."

The Obama campaign quickly trotted out its own stable of surrogates, including former Clinton administration national security adviser Anthony Lake, who argued, "A great nation and its President should never fear negotiating with anyone and Sen. Obama rightly said he would be willing to do so."

So, Lake pretends Obama said what he should have said -- that is, what Clinton said.

Lynn Sweet in the Chicago-Sun Times:

During the day Tuesday, the Clinton and Obama campaigns issued dueling critical memos while advisers sparred over who appeared more presidential. The candidates each gave interviews to the Quad City Times in Iowa, the state with the crucial lead-off presidential vote, where they escalated the rhetoric.

"I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive," Clinton told the paper. Obama, she said, gave an answer "I think he is regretting today."

Obama told the paper that Clinton's camp was trying to score "political points."

Yes, she's not just demonstrating that she's right on the issue, she's demonstrating how to be a strong candidate, which is actually more important as the Democrats decide who they want to be the candidate.

He stood by his response and that Clinton's position was not that different from the Bush administration policy, so she "can't claim the mantle of change."

"The mantle of change." I wonder what people picture when they hear the word "mantle." Really, think about it for a while: The Mantle of Change, The Mantle of Change, The Mantle of Change. Doesn't it sound like something you win at a stage of a video game?

The Obama rhetoric is getting stale and repetitious -- just as Hillary is trouncing him in the after-debate!

Obama's campaign was trying to regain its footing after walking into a potential political minefield. The debate story in the Miami Herald, another early primary state where Cuban Americans make up a voting bloc, said Obama and Edwards "suggested Monday that they would meet with two leaders who top South Florida's most-hated list: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez."

If he met with Chavez, Obama told the Iowa paper, it would be to tell him "what I don't like" while finding areas to "potentially work together."

"I didn't say these guys were going to come over for a cup of coffee some afternoon," Obama said.

That coffee line tries to brush off the controversy as lightweight and meaningless, but it is his biggest showdown with Clinton thus far.

He barely shows up for the showdown.

UPDATE: What about the second day after the debate?

"The notion that I was somehow going to be inviting them over for tea next week without having initial envoys meet is ridiculous," he said...

So from "coffee some afternoon" to "tea next week"...

Live-blogging the Democratic debate.

1. Just waiting for this thing to kick off. I'll add to this post, numbering the paragraphs as I go.

2. Intro, from some YouTube clip. Richardson looks terrified. Clinton, resolute. But now, it's Anderson Cooper, in the flesh. Couldn't someone have Tubed him? Biden glistens. Cooper blabs about how the questions were "heartfelt" so they had trouble choosing. Now, he's showing some cute clips that aren't chosen. Cooper cruelly slams some 5-year-old girl for being a puppet of her parents. And he hilariously slams the Biden campaign for its trick getting a lot of YouTubers to ask the same question.

3. Question 1: Politicians always make promises, but then they don't do anything. How will you be different? A good meta question. Unfortunately, we're getting an answer from Dodd. He got the job done in the Senate. Fine, but who cares about Dodd? Ah, now Obama. We need to "change how business is done in Washington." He brings "perspective" -- the perspective that we need to change.

4. Question 2, for Kucinich. How would we be better off with him? Why'd CNN pick this question? I think we know. They're packaging up li'l Dennis to set him aside for the rest of the night.

5. Kucinich is wearing a checked shirt. The hell? What male wears a checked shirt?! Hillary was "involved in the question," so Cooper throws it over to her. Wow! She's wearing an orange jacket textured with curving, scalloped lines. It reminds me of a chair we had in the 1950s, but it actually looks rather pretty and definitely sets her apart from the guys who absolutely are not free to wear orange suits. She speaks in a solid, stern voice that has nothing to do with wavy orange patterns. She speaks in a straight, navy blue line. Obama gets included here too, and he's elegant in a gray suit and a blue tie. His gestures look flowing as I scroll through them in slo-mo, looking for the perfect frame to post here. Just wait a few minutes.



6. Hillary is asked to define "liberal" and to say if she is one. She doesn't like what other people have done to the good old word, so she prefers "progressive." The problem with "liberal" is that people think it means government will do everything for you, but "progressive" seems to be about giving people "tools" to better themselves. Cooper throws it to Gravel. Is he a liberal? He lights into Obama for taking money from lobbyists.

7. The next question gets applause: What if they had to pick a Republican running mate? Who would it be? Biden fails to answer the question. He just lists his accomplishments. Edwards says Chuck Hagel, then brushes the question aside and runs through his issues. No one else gets the question! Blah! Cool question. Crap nonanswers. [ADDED, reading the transcript: Biden did blurt out "Chuck Hagel" before going on about his accomplishments. The Edwards just copied him.]

8. Should African-Americans get reparations for slavery? Edwards: no (but blah, blah, blah other stuff about African-Americans). Obama cleverly says the reparations should be "investment in our schools." Cooper asks the whole group. Kucinich comes forward, and his answer begins "The Bible says...." Yeesh! Imagine if a Republican started an answer that way.

9. Richardson's first chance to speak is about Hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately, he seems robotic and looks awful -- afraid to spend money on makeup? -- and I feel like I'm watching the man -- whom I respect -- slip into oblivion.

10. "Not my question!" Cooper proclaims as he repeats a question from a black man to Obama: What about the way they're saying you're not "authentically black"? Obama refers to trying to catch a cab, that is, he reminds us he's been subjected to bias because of the way he looks to people who don't know anything about his ancestry and upbringing. He then segues to talking about how he's concerned about race issues. Clinton is then asked about being a woman. "I may be able to break that hardest of glass ceilings." For some reason, this line touches me, and I've been steely toward Clinton as she's played the sex card in the past. She's running not as a woman, she says (now!), but because she thinks she's the "best person." But she ends saying her taking office would send a nice message to "a lot of little girls and boys around the world."

11. Cooper asks Edwards about the way his wife says he's better for women than Hillary is. He talks about poverty, wages, and health care.

12. Two lesbians ask if they should be allowed to marry. Kucinich, of course, says yes. Dodd blathers about how one ought to treat people who happen to have a different sexual orientation but then says "civil unions" and denies marriage. Richardson would do "what is achievable" -- and that is civil unions. He volunteers that he'd reject "Don't ask, don't tell."

13. A reverend asks about the way religion is used to deny rights to gay persons. Edwards goes first and says he feels "enormous conflict" about the issue and he's been on a "journey" about it. His wife supports gay marriage though. I'm really skeptical about this notion that a candidate's spouse can represent positions for him, so that he gets to seem somehow sympathetic to it when he's not for it. What if President Bush tried to appease people who don't like the war in Iraq by telling us that Laura was actually opposed to it? We'd just laugh at him! The reverend turns out to be in the audience, and Cooper asks him how he liked the answer. Edwards now admits that it's wrong to use religion as the basis for denying gay people their rights.

14. What are they thinking?



Clinton: I've got the nomination in my clutches.

Obama: I'm in this!

Richardson: I'm doomed. Either that or he's catching up on his reading and doesn't know he's doomed.

15. How do we pull out of Iraq now? Even if you opposed the war to start. It's like leaving a newborn baby to take care of itself. Obama says we should "be careful" getting out but also that we need to make it clear that "there is no military solution."

16. A mother of a soldier asks why the Congress hasn't stopped the war yet. Are the Democrats holding back for fear of getting blamed for losing the war? This question gets applause. Clinton goes first. No real answer. Kucinich lights on fire: All we need to do is cut off the funds. We can do it! Then Dodd flares up. Iraq is keeping us from saving Darfur. Sure. Richardson says he's different. Bring all the troops home by the end of the year. The war is a "quagmire." "It's endless." "Get it done."

17. Gravel yells that all the soldiers who died in Vietnam died in vain, because "you can now go to Hanoi and get a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cone." And now, in Iraq, they are all dying in vain! Cooper throws it to Obama: Have all the soldiers in Iraq died in vain? Obama switches to the issue of going into Iraq. Cooper refocuses him, and he says no. Soldiers never die in vain (somehow). Edwards gets the question, and he too realizes he's got to deny that the soldiers die in vain.

18. Should women have to register for the military at age 18 the way men do? Yes: Dodd, Clinton, Edwards, Gravel.

19. Nice question for Clinton: How will you be effective with the Arab states when they are so biased against women? Oh, they'll take her seriously, she tells us. In fact, just having a woman President will be an effective statement. I like that. And I'd kind of like to see that.

20. They go to extreme closeup for Edwards for some reason:



21. Would you meet -- "without precondition" -- with the leaders of Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, North Korea? Obama: "I would!" Hillary: "I will not promise..." You don't make promises like that without knowing more about how it will be used. She's got the more responsible answer, clearly. Edwards: "Yes," but Clinton is right. A little fence-straddling. And this is the precise point in the debate where I conclude -- I'd been toying with the conclusion -- that Clinton is the superior candidate.

22. "How many family members do you have serving in uniform?" asks a man with many military deaths in his family. The answers devolve into more talk about the plan to withdraw troops.

23. "Who was your favorite teacher and why?" Gravel claims some brother recognized his "dyslexia." Come on! Who talked about "dyslexia" back when Gravel was a kid? Obama had a teacher who made him feel special for having lived outside of the country. Biden talks about a priest who taught him something about the greatest sin... and his microphone malfunctions, so we don't really hear it. Edwards had a teacher who taught him that a guy could have a daddy who worked in a mill and .... blah blah blah... teacher wants li'l Johnny to be President.

24. A question about No Child Left Behind is written on a series of placards, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"-style. Richardson would scrap it -- and give teachers a $40,000 a year minimum wage, emphasize math and science, and have a "major federal program" for "music, dancing, sculpture, and the arts." Finally! A President who cares about sculpture. Biden: No Child Left Behind -- which he voted for -- was "a mistake." "Ya need better teachers." No kidding!

25. Would you send your kids to private school? Edwards: His kids all went to public school. Hillary: Chelsea went to public school "until we moved to Washington." "The press would never leave her alone." Obama: His kids went to a private school because it was near their house. Most in-your-face answer of the night, from Biden: "My kids did go to private school. It's because right after I got elected my wife and daughter were killed. I had two sons who survived." His sister helped him with those sons and sent them to Catholic school. He looks a little pissed off at having to talk about this. The poor man. Did you remember his terrible tragedy? Kucinich: Public school! Gravel: Both. Competition is good! Dodd: Veers off topic and lectures us about whatever. [ADDED, on reading the transcript: Biden's sister brought the sons to the Friends school, and later, he sent them to Catholic school.]

26. Sex education. Obama gets a chance to respond to Romney, who recently criticized him for saying he supported age-appropriate education for young schoolkids. He gives the right answer: Kids need to know if someone is "encroaching on their privacy."

27. They get really YouTubish with two Tennessee guys who ask whether all the press about Al Gore running hurts y'all's feelins. This gives all the candidates a chance to display their best, big, toothy smiles. No actual answers, just another video, a snowman talking -- in the style of Mr. Bill -- about Gore's big issue, global warming. Then, there's a cute video about energy conservation. Gravel says tax people on what they spend, not what they earn. Dodd wants to take us down to a 55 mile an hour speed limit, Jimmy Carter-style.

28. Nuclear power. Edwards: No. He's for "bio" fuel. He's against liquefied coal, because it's a "carbon-based" fuel. Like his "bio" fuel isn't. Obama: We should "explore nuclear power." Clinton: She's "agnostic" about nuclear power. "It can be a win-win if we do it right."

29. Would you work -- as President -- for the minimum wage? Edwards and Clinton -- totally rich -- both say sure. Obama is nicely set up to point out they're rich... even though "We don't have Mitt Romney money."

30. Why not make everyone pay Social Security taxes on all of their income? Dodd says yes. Obama won't answer. No one else speaks.

31. Damned Baby Boomers... raise taxes or cut benefits? Richardson talks about diabetes. No one else speaks.

32. A Virginia guy strums a guitar and sings about taxes. He doesn't like them. Only Biden answers, and he deserves credit for admitting that the government needs your money, but then he does the standard Democratic thing of saying he'd just take away the tax benefits the rich folks have.

33. Another question about Democrats and taxes. Only Kucinich answers.

34. Cooper prepares us for a barrage of questions about health care. Edwards shows his trial lawyer stuff wringing sympathy out of us with the story of a man who couldn't speak because he couldn't afford surgery that would restore his speech. Hillary wants "decency and respect" for everyone.

35. God and guns. One guy shows a quarter and recites the motto "In God We Trust." Biden's okay with it. Another guy says he doesn't believe in God and worries about Democrats pandering to religion the way the Republicans do. Blah blah blah... what do you expect them to say?

36. The end. The end of my TiVo anyway. I did get a little "off-live" tonight. It's hard to resist the power of the remote controller. If it persisted beyond 2 hours, I missed it. I guess there was something about guns. Anyway, that's it for me. So, okay, what do I think of the YouTube experiment and the way CNN filtered the raw questioning? I think they did pretty well. And, frankly, all the candidates did reasonably well. But, it's clear too that the top 3 that we knew coming in were the top 3 really are the top 3. I think John Edwards did a nice job of pulling himself up even with Barack Obama. And, likewise, Hillary Clinton let us know she's #1. Bill Richardson failed to distinguish himself from the rest of the pack. And so, we have a top 3, with a clear frontrunner. Now, can we see a debate with those 3? Please, before it's rammed down our throats that Hillary is inevitable? I'm not against Hillary. I found her appealing tonight. But I would like to see her tested against Edwards and Obama, without the pointless excess of Gravel and Kucinich... and... Dodd... and, sorry... Biden and Richardson.

37. Writing the next morning, with the transcript, I can see the last part, about guns. Biden calls the guy in the video crazy: "I don't know that he is mentally qualified to own that gun. I'm being serious.... Look, we should be working with law enforcement, right now, to make sure that we protect people against people who don't -- are not capable of knowing what to do with a gun because they're either mentally imbalanced and/or because they have a criminal record, and I hope he doesn't come looking for me." I didn't see the video, so maybe the guy did look crazy -- he was holding his gun and calling it his "baby" -- but Biden seems awfully interested in taking away guns.

38. Finally, they are asked to look at the person to their left and say one thing they don't like about them. Most of them won't say anything bad, but Edwards snarks about Hillary's jacket: "I'm not sure about that coat." Which might seem cute, but might piss women off. Hillary comes back with: "Yes, John, it's a good thing we're ending soon." Which sounds like a wife telling her husband he's had too much to drink. But she's supposed to talk about Obama, so she says: "I admire and like very much Barack." I find it hard to believe a sentence that sounds like it was translated from a foreign language. But then, why should she like very much Barack? She'd like very much less Barack. Then Obama one-ups Edwards with "I actually like Hillary's jacket. I don't know what's wrong with it." Which could be read as a double insult. First, it puts down Edwards for knocking the lady's clothes. And second, it subtly implies that Edwards is feminine: Obama can't tell what is wrong with the jacket, because he's a man and doesn't know about fashion, not like some other men, who aren't manly enough.

39. Cooper ends with a pitch for YouTube and the Republican debates. So they're using this format again. Now that people have seen the videos -- and which videos CNN chooses -- it should have an effect on the quality of the next set of videos. What are the lessons? You can do humor and you can speak through animation or puppetry as long as you ask a dead serious question, like that snowman did. It helps to personify the question, like those lesbians or the man with dead soldiers in his his family. And it seems to work to sound a little inept or too casual in the first second and a half, but then quickly get out a clear question. They also obviously want questions in the same basic areas they'd hit if they were writing their own questions, so you might choose something boring -- like Social Security -- that not too many other people will do but that CNN will think has to get in. Good luck.

20 countries have offered Katrina aid.

It's reported here that offers of aid have come from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, China, Jamaica, Honduras, Greece, Venezuela, the Organisation of American States, NATO, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, South Korea, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

This, despite President Bush's statement:

"I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it."

Did you notice Venezuela on that list?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the United States, offered to send cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area.

The State Department did not comment on Venezuela's offer but several officials smiled at the gesture from Mr Chavez, who yesterday called Mr Bush a "cowboy" who failed to manage the disaster.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, a close Chavez ally, led a minute of silence in remembrance of the victims of Katrina in parliament on today. The parliament then returned to normal business with a resolution attacking Mr Bush over the Iraq war.