What you missed while watching "Dirty Jobs"

Aug. 8, 2007 | 0 minutes. Former "SportsCenter" host Keith Olbermann welcomes everyone to Soldier Field, home of Da' Bears. "We have definitely not gathered for an NFL preseason game," he says. But many in the crowd of roughly 15,000 union workers are not listening to him. They are mugging for the camera.

2 minutes. A squinty round union boss named John Sweeney comes on-screen. "We believe one of the people up here tonight will be our next president," he says, in a voice that sounds like air being let slowly out of a balloon. Behind him, in a pit just below the lip of the stage, workers in bright green, yellow, orange and blue shirts are waving things: hats, hands shaped like peace signs, arms. Heads bob up and down like whackamole.

4 minutes. Olbermann, who now works for MSNBC, warns the candidates to pay attention to the red and yellow lights that keep time. "Ignore the lights, we turn off your air conditioning. Second offense, your air conditioning becomes heat," he says. He does not explain how MSNBC air conditions an outdoor football stadium. It is about 90 degrees in Chicago. Two words come to mind: union labor.

8 minutes. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is asked to name some way the nation is not prepared for something. He immediately attacks New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who voted in 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq. "Look, I don't believe that we are safer now than we were after 9/11, because we have made a series of terrible decisions in our foreign policy," he says. "We went into Iraq, a war that we should have never authorized and should not have been waged." No hesitation at all -- a quick jab to the chin. This man has come for a fight.

11 minutes. He is not the only one. John Edwards is asked how he would convince Americans to deal with inconveniences like traffic jams caused by repairing old bridges. He swings at Clinton, who said in another debate Saturday that she would take contributions from lobbyists. "This past Saturday, I think a very stark contrast was presented to Democratic voters in this primary," says Edwards. "We should say: 'This game is over. The system is rigged in Washington, D.C.' " It's scored as a clean uppercut. Clinton absorbs the hit without so much as a grimace.

16 minutes. For the second time in 10 minutes, Olbermann asks the crowd to stop applauding so much. "The less applause we have, the more questions we can get in," he reasons. But Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich has just called himself the "workers' candidate." The place is going nuts.

18 minutes. Olbermann introduces a round of questions on NAFTA, the Bill Clinton-led trade pact with Mexico and Canada that all Democrats now seem to hate. "All Democrats," by the way, includes Bill Clinton's wife. "NAFTA and the way it's been implemented has hurt a lot of American workers," she says. In the business, this is called CYA.

20 minutes. After New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson promises to get rid of "union-busting attorneys" in the executive branch, Soldier Field goes crazy with cheers again. Olbermann gives up. "We're not going to contain the applause, I'm afraid," he says, with apparent sadness.

21 minutes. Obama gets his second round. Of course he goes after Clinton, this time by returning to the lobbyist issue. "Are we going to make certain that you have a voice in Washington and not just those who are paying the big money in Washington to have that opportunity to negotiate?" he asks. It's a glancing blow. Hillary is still holding steady.

24 minutes. Now it's Edwards' turn to take a few more shots. "I want everyone to hear my voice on this," Edwards calls out in his best riled-up-populist tone. "The one thing you can count on is you will never see a picture of me on the front of Fortune magazine saying, 'I am the candidate that big, corporate America is betting on.'" This is a sucker punch to Clinton's gut. She was on the cover of Fortune in June, with the headline "Business loves Hillary." It's not clear how much more she can take.

26 minutes. Olbermann takes pity on the former first lady and gives her a chance to respond. Clinton plays the martyr. She announces that she will absorb the blows for the good of the party. "Well, I am -- I'm just -- I'm just taking it all in," she says. Then she fires back. "You know, I've noticed in the last few days that a lot of the other campaigns have been using my name a lot." This is a reference to her epic lead in the polls. A new Gallup survey, released Tuesday, shows her with a 23-point lead over Obama and a 32-point lead over Edwards. Then she says, "If you want a winner who knows how to take them on, I'm your girl."

27 minutes. The union folk love that line. Olbermann is desperate, losing control of the crowd. He tries humor. "I'm just wondering if Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln had a moderator and if he had to try to quiet the crowd down," he jokes.

33 minutes. First commercial break. The advertisers are precisely the kind of companies that hire big-money lobbyists to buy off politicians -- the oil giant ConocoPhillips, the finance behemoth Liberty Mutual, the health insurer Kaiser Permanente.

36 minutes. We're back. Behind Olbermann all the union folk are milling about, taking pictures, waving at the camera. They don't sit down even though the host is trying to get on with the debate.

39 minutes. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden is sick of all the Clinton bashing. So he goes after Obama for announcing last week that he would be willing to attack Pakistan if it was the only way to get al-Qaida. "If al-Qaida establishes a base in Iraq, all these people who are talking about going into Pakistan are going to have to send your kids back to Iraq," he says. "Let's start talking the truth to the American people." He is swinging a bit wild. It's not clear if he is aiming only at Obama or at everyone onstage.

Next page: The Chicago crowd won't let Clinton knock out their home-state senator