John McCain is making it clear — he’s against mandatory health insurance.

He’s said it before, but the Senator emphasized his position Wednesday at a health care forum organized by a hospital trade association in DC.

MCCAIN: “I don’t think that there should be a mandate for every American to have health insurance. I think that one of our goals should be that every American own their own home, but I’m not going to mandate that every American own their own home. I think that every American should have, be available to, an affordable college education. But I’m not going to mandate that every American go to college. I feel the same way about health care. If it’s affordable and available, then it seems to me that again, it’s a matter of choice amongst Americans.”

One highlight of McCain’s health policy is a tax credit of $2500 per individual or $5000 per family to pay for health insurance.

Policy aides clarified details of that proposal Wednesday. They say workers would have to pay taxes on the dollar amount of coverage provided by an employer. But they say the new insurance credit would more than offset the extra taxes for all but the wealthiest Americans. The tax deduction to employers providing insurance would stay in place.

Others might have been slaughtered. 6 men played pig pile on the frontrunning female. In last nights debate in Philly, Edwards aim was truest and the caliber was best. Obama promised to turn it on but he was outdone by Edwards. Dodd made muscular case against her on electability. Kucinich has seen a UFO!

Her one glaring error came at the tail end of the two hour debate.

She seemed to signal support for letting illegal aliens get drivers licenses in NY. But then she backed off which prompted her rivals to blast her for avoiding positions. They think her weak spot is candor. They like “calculating, triangulating, opportunistic, disingenuous,” and about thirty euphemisms for LYING. Tonight Obama told her to her face she does not tell the truth!

Republicans will beat her to a pulp in the general election for supporting drivers licenses for illegal aliens. But democrats slammed her for obfuscating. They hit her on SS for not taking a position either. She was accused of being party to Washington corruption and she was accused of being a phony.. They slammed her for voting to designate the Iranian revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, and the hits kept coming.

It was a rough night for her, but be clear: her worst moment was prompted not by her rivals but a moderator question. All but Dodd actually support letting illegals have drivers licenses. She did not make any huge mistakes. She dodged questions and attacks. Does anybody really think Democratic primary voters don’t already know who Hillary Clinton is???? She and her husband have been dodging questions and attacks for decades. NOTHING NEW HERE PEOPLE.

The question is can 6 men convince democrats that just being a Clinton is reason enough to abandon her. Thus far despite tens of millions of dollars and 10 months of non stop campaigning against her..she has a growing lead, organization and war chest. Behind the scenes rival campaigns are appalled at how unsuccessful they have been as a collective to make any attacks stick. Tonight all the campaigns got the memo: nail her credibility and character. It will be hard to keep a unified attack going…they don’t all share a debate stage every night. Truth is if you match them up, no one candidate did better than Hillary. No one candidate beat her. It was the group that on a few occasions got the best of her. But she is still standing. 10 weeks more till the first votes. She’s gonna face much worse before the democratic nomination race is over. Then whoever the nominee is will face the GOP buzz saw. And with this democratic field republicans are salivating. The RNC is out every day or so with an attack on one or all of them…just beginning to stretch those general election muscles.

Clinton, Obama and Edwards the big winners tonight, getting nearly half the debate to themselves.
Biden the big loser on time.

per Mosheh Oinounou

Each of the campaigns are declaring victory after tonight’s debate. The Clinton team has posted this video clip of their “moment of the night” and released the following statement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SADN57GqkTI

CLINTON CAMPAIGN STATEMENT BELOW:

——-

Rivals Swing and Miss as Hillary Rises Above

Philadelphia Debate

While her rivals abandoned the politics of hope and launched one attack after another, Hillary demonstrated why she has the strength and experience to deliver the change America needs.

(more…)

Press release from Open-Vote.com: Drexel Says Obama Wins Debate, Hillary edges out Edwards for Second

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Hundreds of Drexel students used open-vote.com to choose Barack Obama as the winner of tonight’s debate.  As of 11:25pm, Senator Obama led with 45% of the more than 200 votes cast, followed by Senator Clinton with 17% and Senator Edwards with 15%.  Throughout the past week, more than 500 Drexel students also voted on which candidate they plan on voting for in the primary, and John Edwards saw the biggest jump from his portion of that poll (5%) to his total in tonight’s debate poll (15%).

(more…)

-per Mosheh Oinounou

Edwards and Obama both went after Clinton on evasiveness and doubletalk and her illegal immigration answer–where she refused to state whether she supports or opposes a NY state plan to give driver’s licences to illegals–exemplified their argument. Did they actually make a permanent impact with voters (and with the media) or does this only make HRC stronger for having survived the fight?

If only we could narrow the debate down to the top three, and they kept up the pressure on one another for two hours, we could really see some continual fireworks and see who really can come out standing in the end.

Obama had some very strong moments tonight, but Edwards’ sustained his attacks throughout the night, maintaining his offensive and coming out on top. Meanwhile, with everyone lobbing missiles at Clinton, Obama didn’t really stand above the rest. Were expectations too high for him? Did he make a mistake by setting them too high?

Winners: Edwards (for keeping up the attack and making the strongest case against HRC), Clinton (surviving), Giuliani (mentions)

-per Corbett Riner

Before the “driver’s licenses” answer I would have said Clinton. The only other time she was really bad was on the Llbrary question, but it was almost all about her and only real wounds were self-inflicted so she won on points

On Iran it is as if the others don’t take the threat seriously .They MAY have scored POLITICAL points on her (though I think that can be argued flat or round) but SUBSTANTIVELY they looked like weak Democrats

Edwards had a very good performance: called her on driver’s licenses, neocons was strong; he took a bad hit from Dodd though

Obama was ok, not good enough going at her; his answer on Usama/Obama was good (though he said the same thing in NH last week so it wasn’t fresh for me)

Biden did well because he will get attention for the Rudy line

Dodd-Richardson-Kucinich: present

-per Serafin Gomez

John Edwards, in my opinion, landed the most blows on Hillary, having the best zingers tonight on the Democratic frontrunner.

Barack Obama struck some direct punches but more on Mitt, and not Hillary. He gave Romney a couple verbal jabs, and one uppercut when talking about his Halloween costume.

Hillary withstood the barrage though. She’s still standing.

I think Richardson made it apparent he’s running for VP.

Clinton’s stumble on licensing illegal aliens in NY came at the last moment. Republicans will pummel her for that position, but among her Democratic rivals all but Chris Dodd agreed with her.

Democrats instead will seize on her verbal stumble in which she suggested that she both supported and opposed the idea in the space of a few minutes. It was her weakest moment of the nite and set up Edwards and Obama to accuse her again of obfuscating. It also came at five minutes to 11p eastern time, so few saw it.

Overall she came in the frontrunner, fully aware her rivals were gunning for her. She stumbled at the end, but otherwise performed well under fire. Obama and Edwards did not land any knock out blows to change their own situations. She leaves the frontrunner.

Dennis Kucinich admits it: He’s seen a UFO. Yes, it’s almost Halloween.