When I first heard about the format of last night’s forum, I was a little skeptical. It seemed that a sit-down chat with each candidate without them confronting each other would keep them from having to defend their positions. Not so. The format worked great.

I think there were clearly winners and losers last night. Regardless of what people say about his electibility, Dennis Kucinich was the best positioned candidate on gay issues. He supports us in everything! This isn’t really news for those of us who live in Cleveland and have know Dennis’ beliefs for years, but it was nice to have him articulating them to a national audience and hopefully making the front runners think twice about their resistance to gay marriage.

The clear loser was Bill Richardson. I wasn’t much of a Richardson fan prior to last night, but now I think he’s lost all credibility with the gay community. Richardson was put on the defensive up front when asked why he used the Spanish version of the word f*ggot on the Don Imus show. Then he made the most fatal blunder of the night when he was asked whether gays were born gay or whether it is a choice. He answered that it was a choice. When given the chance to correct himself he instead went on about how he isn’t a scientist. And finally, he said the states are moving faster than the federal government on gay rights, but when asked if he would sign a gay marriage bill if passed by the Arizona legislature, he kept dodging the question. Richardson was already a second tier candidate, now he’s off the radar for gay voters.

Of the three top tier candidates I believe that Barack Obama did best, followed by John Edwards and lastly by Hillary Clinton. Obama seemed to truly speak from the heart and not from a stump speech. I truly believe his statement that as an African American he knows what it feels like to be treated like a second class citizen and that will influence how he treats gays. Edwards is still on his “journey” on the issue of gay marriage, but I think he has one of the greatest chances of reaching the right destination the fastest. Elizabeth Edwards has already come out as fully supporting gay marriage and I think she’ll have a big influence on her husband’s beliefs. Hillary has a fairly good record with supporting the gay community, but she made several unfortunate statements last night. First, she said that the struggle for equal rights is a long term struggle and the gay community hasn’t struggled long enough yet. How long do we have to struggle until we get the rights we should have had all along? Second, unlike Obama and Edwards, she doesn’t support repealing all of DOMA, only one section of it.

Before the debate I was unsure what, if anything, Melissa Etheridge would bring to the table as one of the moderators. I think she was the most effective. She asked the fatal “nature vs choice” question to Richardson, told Clinton her husband threw gays under the bus, asked Edwards a great question about teaching kids about gay families in public schools and rightfully praised Kucinich for his accomplishments.

Even though none of the front runners made major changes to their views, the debate was still a major success. It brought our issues to the forefront and in many ways has taken away the Republicans ability to politicize gays.

I’d love to hear what everyone else thought of the forum. Leave your thoughts in the comments section!