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Video: Democratic presidential debate

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A look at the Democratic candidates and their performance on the campaign trail

Dennis Kucinich proved that he belonged on stage. While he may only be sitting at 2 percent, no candidate speaks for Democratic activists on the issues that matters most than Kucinich. He also provided Barack Obama’s finest moment, when Obama took the Cleveland congressman to task for ruling out military options on Iran. It wasn’t what he said that mattered as much as how he said it. For the first time, Obama seemed unscripted and on his toes.

And then, of course, there was the woman pundits declared the winner, Hillary Clinton.

At the debate we saw a woman who endured 12 tough years as the progressive wife of a Southern governor, eight brutal years as a powerful first lady and six years as United States Senator. She was the most experienced candidate by far and it showed.

You could tell this debate was not a great challenge for Hillary Clinton.

Going on “60 Minutes” to explain how your husband deserved to be president even though he seemed to delight in publicly humiliating you is a challenge. Standing by that same husband seven years later after being humiliating in the most horrific of ways is a challenge. Dealing with the Marc Rich scandal while trying to set up your office in the U.S. Senate is a challenge. But Hillary talking policy with seven less experienced politicians is nothing but a walk in the park.

So what was the net result of last week’s debate? Not much.

Hillary’s stock went up a bit and John Edwards’ dropped. But the most important development may be that all those Washington pundits comparing Barack Obama to Bobby Kennedy and Jesus Christ will lower their expectations and start judging Obama for who he is: an incredibly gifted writer and orator who arrived in the U.S. Senate two years ago.

The biggest beneficiary of those lowered expectations will be none other than Barack Obama himself.