I haven't paid a lot of attention to the debates so far because it seems too early. But the first primaries are about six months away and we'll have to pick somebody sooner or later. So we watched this one all the way through.

Read more after the jump...

I liked the format. One question, each candidate gets one minute to answer, with a 30 second lightning round at the end. No rebuttals. There also weren't any real attacks (except Gravel saying everybody else was wrong about everything), and instead a lot of agreement. It was a little rushed at the end.

The debate was hosted by Tavis Smiley and it was held at Howard University. It was a mostly African-American audience (with lots of notables) and the theme was "All American" as in inclusion, and the topics were issues that affect the black community.

Overall, Clinton showed a ready command of the issues and the facts, and an ability to speak directly to the point and offer solutions. Edwards revived his "two Americas" theme a couple of times to good effect, and his background on poverty ties in to many of the issues discussed.

Despite his home court advantage, Obama was not as inspiring as I expected. Kucinich hammered his anti-war theme, which was well received, and many of his answers related to the social programs that could be funded with all the money we're spending on the war. Richardson was ill at ease and seemed to have trouble making his points. Dodd is a typical politician. Gravel is a nut, but an entertaining nut.

Biden was the most pleasant surprise to me. I always liked him because he is such a smart ass, and I can relate to that for some reason. He, too, had a good grasp of the issues, seemed very relaxed, and is willing to talk the tough talk on tough issues.

It was a little odd having mostly white people talk to the black community about solutions to problems in the black community. It came off as a little inappropriate at times, such as the many references to drugs (mainly from Gravel but from others as well) as if all African Americans are drug addicts and that's the root of all problems in the black community.

There was a lot of talk about the very real problems of education and achievement, poverty, and equal opportunity, but there was a sense that some of the candidates view African Americans as perpetual underachievers and no one seemed to be able to relate it to class and poverty issues that affect everyone, not just the black community, in keeping with the "All American" theme of the debate. Edwards probably came closest to suggesting this, but didn't really close the sale.

The best moment for me (and apparently the Mrs., who jumped up and cheered at the TeeVee) was Hillary Clinton's answer to a question about why unemployment among blacks with a high school diploma is higher than for whites who dropped out of school. Everyone mostly repeated what they had already said regarding education and opportunity. Clinton was the only one who directly answered the question and she nailed it when she said it was because "there is still discrimination in the workplace" and it's unacceptable.

The oddest moment was Richardson's response to a question about the higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the black community. He said something forgettable about education, and then blurted out "We need more needles." I think there was a collective "huh?" for a second. I presume he meant clean needle exchange programs for illegal IV drug users, which seemed like another slap at the black community. Either way, it was strange.

Biden was the only one who answered this effectively, saying we need to quit avoiding the fact that men have to wear condoms and women need to know when to say no. (Clinton scored huge applause by noting that if it were a majority of white women dying of AIDS there would be a huge public outcry.)

The HIV/AIDS question also brought the most uncomfortable, and somewhat humorous moment, when Biden was talking about expanded testing and mentioned that both he and Obama had been tested for AIDS. Obama looked temporarily stunned, and Al Sharpton looked like he was about to come out of his seat. This brought the only "rebuttal" of the night when Obama clarified that he was tested together with his wife Michelle at an AIDS public health event in Africa (presumably as a leadership example). Biden then clarified he had been tested because of blood transfusions.

The other humorous moment came when Tavis Smiley had to cut off Dodd for about the fifth time, saying "if you were Paris Hilton we would give you the whole hour" (perhaps in reference to Larry King's hour-long interview if Hilton this week that bumped Michael Moore). Hillary Clinton was up next, and said "OK, moving along before I get compared to Paris Hilton…" or something.

In the end, there were some great ideas for proposed solutions regarding educational achievement, equal opportunity, health care, job growth, and even taxes. And there seemed to be general agreement among the candidates on most of the ideas.

There was a lot of other great discussion, including condemnation of yesterday's Supreme Court decision effectively overturning Brown v. The Board of Education. Obama scored big points on that in his opening response, saying that "if it wasn't for Howard University alumni Thurgood Marshall and Brown v. The Board of Education, I would not be standing here today."

PBS will have video of the debate online later this morning here [1].

UPDATE: Digby's thoughts [2].

UPDATE: Kossacks [3] are currently scoring it for Edwards, followed by Obama then Clinton.

UPDATE: Pam's House Blend [4] has an excellent live-blogging play-by-play. (By way of ACK [5].)