After about a week of non-stop mainstream media coverage of Obama’s and Clinton’s campaign rhetoric, which involved a courteous exchange of race and gender-based rhetoric and posturing, the Democrats finally decided to consciously make peace for the Las Vegas audience to prevent further deterioration and collapse of democracy. All three candidates indicated at the beginning of the debate that they wanted to discuss real issues and highlight real differences between them and not answer more questions about campaign tactics and strategy. And they got it, after about 30 minutes of media-required, routine procedure of campaign questioning. But spending even an hour of debate on actual substance is, of course, much more than one could hope for in such a vibrant democracy as ours. But contrary to the candidates’ suggestions and hints, all substantive questions were answered in purely rhetorical ways. In fact, after about an hour of so-called substantive debate, we were finally able to see the difference between the three candidates: Hillary Clinton voted against the 2005 Energy Act, while Senator Obama voted for it. Former Senator Edwards couldn’t vote for or against it, since he has dedicated his life to presidential campaigning, conveniently foregoing debating and voting on legislation.

A highlight of the debate came unsurprisingly when the question about Iraq withdrawal plan was asked. All three candidates pledged to withdraw all combat troops by 2009, contrary to the assertions they made in the previous MSNBC debate, when all three told Tim Russert that they would be unable to commit to withdrawing all combat troops by 2013! When Tim Russert pointed it out, like good lawyers, they quickly jumped on it, suggesting that they said the same thing in that debate.

On the question of the economy, one would be unable to tell their positions apart, as they all promised to make everything more transparent. In other words, now we can see the mess, but still can’t do anything about it. As a result, a viewer is left to distinguish the candidates precisely on the race and gender basis rather than on positions.

Of course the real story of the debate is the absence of Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, who are still officially in the race, but have been conveniently marginalized by MSNBC and the rest of the mainstream media. Perhaps they have been punished for committing an unthinkable and unacceptable sin of opposing the war on moral and legal grounds, rather than just regurgitating that it was a “strategic mistake”, like Senator Obama suggested in the debate. One is left to wonder, if the War in Iraq was going well, would Senator Obama still oppose it?

Instead of asking what is the difference between Obama/Clinton/Edwards, I would suggest that it would be more helpful to ask what the difference is between them and the Republican party of warmongers? Clearly, Dennis Kicinich and Mike Gravel oppose the war on much more substantive grounds and ones more in line with the majority of the Democratic Party. But they are not allowed to express it on the mainstream media, only in local newspapers and unheard of magazines.

If anyone wonders what is meant by the suggestion that there is a very narrow and highly constricted scope of opinion, one doesn’t have to go much farther than his/her living room TV set to find out. Although based on the presentation, can one really know what the full scope of opinion really looks like?

So now that the actually experienced candidates have departed, like Senator Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, while Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel have been punished for expressing the wrong views, we have the predictable three candidates in Obama, Edwards and Clinton. And for the rest of the primary season we are left to hear literally the same thing from each one of them with marginal and insignificant legislative differences. The real difference will continue to be what they always were - words, rhetoric and slogans.