Making Change

It was a twi-night doubleader (remember those) on ABC last night, with the Republican presidential candidates facing off in the first debate of the evening and the Dems battling in the nightcap (another sports metaphor done away with due to the greed that permeates pro sports these days).

But I digress.

Mitt Romney, as expected, was the whipping boy in the GOP debate.

With Iowa's winner Mike Huckabee showing little promise in New Hampshire, and thus little chance of building an early tidal wave, Romney was the wounded big fish in the water and the other candidates are smelling an opportunity to all but finish him off on Tuesday.

On the Democratic side, one would think Barack Obama's Iowa win along with his firming poll numbers in New Hampshire would have been enough to make him the target at last night's debate.

Hillary Clinton tried to make it so, attacking Obama on his health care plan and his experience level.

But something surprising happened on the podium at St. Anselm College.

A fiesty John Edwards came to Obama's defense and blasted Clinton instead.

Edwards alligned himself with Obama, saying they were the two candidates of change. He tried to paint Clinton as the establishment candidate, saying when the forces for change speak up it's certain to bring a swift reaction from the proponents of the status-quo - in this case Clinton.

Obviously Edwards, who could have opted to try to help Clinton bring Obama down a peg , is hoping to help send the one-time frontrunner packing.

The full exchange is viewable here.

(There's an ad first that you can't scroll through and the first half of the clip is just the warm up. The good stuff starts at about the five minute mark and runs for about two or three more minutes.)

And so now we know that - like millions of clerks at 7-11s and CVSs around the country - Hillary Clinton knows how to "make change." Which is probably more than we can say for the current occupant of the White House.