Wolf Blitzer.
First, he started off on the wrong foot, saying there would be no bells or timing lights, but would instead use the "honor system" to keep candidates' answers to a minute or so. The bell worked very well for the GOP debate hosted by Fox. Timers help candidates pace themselves. Wolf, by leaving the rules so uncertain, just asks for trouble and the talk clock proves the unfairness of the process.
Second, he made matters worse by impatiently cutting people off even when they were taking less than a minute. He treated the candidates more like guests on his show than as participants who were the show. Highly annoying.
Third, he did not always listen. He acted as if questions were not answered even when they were.
Fourth, he directed the major national security questions first to Hillary, on Iran and Pakistan. Then he sent the major Iraq question to Kucinich.
Fourth, he abused the local voters' segment by taking the good questions voters and hijacking them. He was obsessive about an Olympics boycott. It's not as if CNN has the broadcast rights to that!
Fifth. Enough is enough when on the "raise your hand" stuff. Did he really think that MSNBC's raise your hand approach was good? This is a DEBATE, not a survey (and they were not even good survey questions).
Sixth. What would you do with Bill Clinton??? Did he really not see the disaster that was the Reagan Library debate? (I know that was technically not Wolf's question, but he allowed it).

Hillary (yes, her campaign goes by the first name and John Edwards and I respect that).
She was again poised, polished, friendly, warm, and presidential. She is very good in these multi-candidate fora.
She successfully blurred distinctions on Iraq and deflected attention back to Bush.
She TOOK CHARGE, being the first to put Wolf in his place on the silly "raise your hand" stuff.
This was really good, too, and as more of the less informed voters see her like this over time, she will become more likeable:

Edwards.
Was either highly annoying or effective. I am picking the latter since the points he was making only really play to those who prefer him already. I may be totally off base on this. Please comment if you think so. But it goes as follows:
Yes, he did need to pick a fight or two. But claiming that he is more of a "leader" on Iraq because Hillary and Obama did not vote loudly enough? Obama's "four and a half years too late" retort seemed warranted. The sound of Hillary's light laugh and the wide camera shots showed Edwards up.
How important is it that you "beat" others by releasing your health care plan a month or two earlier? And he is just plain wrong on Obama's plan not mandating that all children be covered.
Edwards constantly refers to who said something first. But its not like his health care plan was devised from scratch. And Hillary was first, years ago, if you want to be technical.
It's just not clear that the approach Edwards is taking will get traction with the media to bring the "leadership" (I am more liberal or liberal sooner) message to an audience beyond the progressive blogosphere where he is already ahead.

Obama.
He won the time battle. He improved his execution, something the media was looking for after the South Carolina debate. He grabbed control of the stage on the question about taking out Osama, a move not as dramatic as Rudy jumping on Ron Paul, but a good job of jumping in on a Kucinich pacifist stance.
Obama was appealing to NH independents among others. His huge (bigger than advertised) grassroots organization is made up of many independents and even Republicans. When Obama told Wolf off on the English as official language question, he highlighted once again his theme of unifying. There was not a lot of red meat from Obama but his meta message matched his campaign message.

Richardson.
He is a governor. He said so at the beginning of every question. But he has a pat answer about his plan on every issue and failed to adapt to the questions in a way that would have prevented Wolf from sounding reasonable in interrupting the answers. He was asked why the immigration bill is not amnesty and necer could get himself to answer with the obvious: because there are fines and other penalties! He just says because there are "standards."

Biden.
Loud. Angry. Wrong. He is not going to win the votes of those who are for public financing of campaigns. Asked how to lower gas prices he replies "remove the subsidy"??????? Economics 101. That would not affect prices at all or would INCREASE prices if the net cost difference is passed on to consumers. He says the border fence will stop drugs but not people?? Biden was good on Darfur. But who wouldn't be?

Others.

Dodd.
Nice web tools. He said very little and barely answered some of the questions.

Gravel. Grumpy. Best line of the night, though, "I get my meds from the VA."

Kucinich. Flowery rhetoric. Would disarm. Abolish the WTO??????? He is for nationalized, protectionist economy without weapons. He stood on a stool. (As did Hillary).

Random but fun.

Ana Marie Cox's always funny liveblog.

Obama campaign's talking points fell into blogger hands.

Hillary gives Edwards "the look" while he is claiming to be more of a leader.

Richardson's site had a live chat tool for folks to talk during the debate.

Hotline had a lot of quick posts.

Visit the other blog links we have to see more.