The Democratic Circus

David Weigel | June 4, 2007

Ah, the "free speech zone"—pioneered by college administrators, fine-tuned by the Bush administration, perfected by CNN. Before last night's debate the hundreds of boosters of Clinton/Obama/Dodd/whoever who braved the seasonal June mists and sub-60 degree temperatues. I've applied my considerable video editing skills to the tape I recorded walking into the rally pen. A minute or so of walking into the pen is followed by a walk alongside the pen. The fresh-scrubbed young folks are not screaming for reason: James Carville was walking right ahead of me.

I'm continuing to put up video from the debate. Here's Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, an Obama endorser, explaining why it looked like the senator was putting the audience to sleep. (I'm having trouble compressing a video of Dennis Kucinich, but luckily it's less interesting than I remembered: He says neither a Democrat who voted for the war and against funding nor a candidate who votes for funding, period can win. So he took a little dig at Hillary then extended his range to hit everyone else.)