A reader asked who won the AARP debate last night. You mean besides the folks who found something to do besides watch it? I’d score this like most of the other ones – if the frontrunner is Hillary Clinton, and nothing happens during the debate to change things dramatically, then she walks out still the frontrunner, and is thus the winner.

Among everybody else – well, Biden strikes me as far and away the most entertaining to watch – only Mike Huckabee uses humor as well as this year’s model of Joe-mentum, and the Delaware senator bleeds sarcasm. But all of that style and point-scoring in previous debates has gotten him nowhere in the polls so far; it’s hard to imagine this debate will do much to change things. Richardson and Dodd have gotten much better as the year has worn on, but it’s just about impossible to see them overtaking Hillary. Edwards has gotten steadily more pugnacious as the campaign has worn on, but there certainly wasn’t any defining, YouTube-worthy, did-you-see-that-smackdown moment, and he needs something like that to shake up the race.

Obama’s absence was no surprise, as he had said he would only participate in the DNC-approved one-per-month debates. Still, not having him there took these already soul-draining recitations of soundbites that the Democrats call “debates” into a new depth of painful boredom, as the guy with the best chance of knocking off the frontrunner and actually making some news was missing. If you thought waiting for Thompson to get into the race was bad, try waiting for the exciting, race-changing surge in support for Chris Dodd.

With Kucinich and Gravel off the stage, the debate was oddly… focused. It was odd, not having a periodic interruption from a screechy dwarf touting a Department of Peace or a cranky old man calling the other people on stage corrupt stooges, and my usual, instinctive, certain-to-be-disappointed glance to the side of the stage hoping to see nurses ready to take Grandpa back to his room.

Despite the expectation that the debate would focus on retirement security and issues of importance to seniors, the questions from Judy Woodruff were pretty much indistinguishable from the previous questions of Brian Williams, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, George Stephanopoulos…