Debate Aftermath
Dean
There's a lot of yammering going on about who "won" the debate last night between Bush and Kerry.
I'd like to take a moment to remind people that, in every debate, initial impressions mean nothing. We won't know what most viewers really thought until roughly Monday, when it's had time to percolate through everyone's heads and they've chatted about it with each other.
My gut says both men did surprisingly good jobs. Bush was on point and aggressive without being obnoxious and of course was not the babbling stumblebum he's so often made out to be. Kerry was less boring and droning than usual, was appropriately aggressive without being an ass, and it was frankly the best Presidential debate I've seen in a long, long time.
My gut's telling me it's a win for Kerry because, frankly, he scared me less than I expected him to. He's still inconsistent on too many things for my tastes, and I think any fool can see that it's easier to criticize than it is to manage (you can criticize anything in retrospect). So we'll see if that's enough to give him an edge.
Again though--we'll have a better idea after a couple of days of thinking and discussion. I doubt much of the yammering right now about what it all means and who did better means much. The partisans will all say their guy was incredible and the other guy was a disaster. Feh. We'll have a more realistic assessment when reasonable people who aren't lock-step partisans have had a chance to chew on it.
* Update * I do have one thought to add. One of the big swing groups this year is the so-called "security moms." Kerry has actually been trailing Bush with women, and the "security moms" are the reason. Frankly, if Kerry accomplished nothing else tonight but to make himself more acceptable to them, then that's a big plus for him, even if everything else is a wash. Hell, I'll even go out on a limb--on Monday we'll see Kerry having picked up some support among women. Because I think he accomplished one key thing, which was to convince people that he wasn't a jellyfish. Mind you, I suspect that he is a jellyfish with no core convictions on how to proceed with the war effort, but I frankly think he probably came off well enough to diminish that image. But we'll see. And we'll also see if it sticks.
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Bush won it..."global test" will kill Kerry out there in the Red States....
Kerry said we can't be trusted with new nuclear weapons such as the bunker busting bomb in developement. He adamantly stated he would kill that program the first day he was in office. He said we can't expect other nations to give up nuclear weapons (N.Korea, Iran?) if we don't set the example. He is screaming "LIBERAL"! at the average citizen when it comes to national defense. He sure scared me!
The impression I received of Kerry's position: "I will stay the course in Iraq. I may not have started the war, but it's what we have now, and I'm not going to just leave. Where I differ from Bush is that I'll make sure more countries get on board with us."
The impression I received of Bush's position: "I will continue to take the fight to the terrorists. I will be steadfast and resolute. I will try to get other countries on board, but I will go it alone if I have to. Where I differ from Kerry is that unlike my opponent, I have never flip-flopped my position."
I was very proud of Bush for how he handled the question about "Any character issues that make your opponent unfit for the Presidency?" He absolutely refused to go negative. Instead he said "That's a loaded question," and then spent an entire minute of his two minutes praising Kerry for various things he could find that were praiseworthy. He then said one -- exactly one -- negative thing: Kerry flip-flops. Kerry's response afterwards held the same high moral tone (if he had done anything else, the polls would have crucified him for it) and said only one negative thing about Bush: Bush is too confident that he's right; if he's wrong, he'd never know it.
My impressions so far, for what they're worth.
If you could actually believe what Kerry said, I might actually be tempted to vote for him — aside from a few bad positions, he did largely feel like he was coming out to the right of Bush on national defense.
Of course, you have to be a fool to believe anything that Kerry says, ever. But it certainly felt to me like a solid Kerry victory.
Can you lay it on a bit heavier, Mark? I could use some cheering up. ;-)
The most impressive part to me is that both men asserted that defense of the U.S. was the primary goal, and that they merely had differing opinions on how to go about it. Even Kerry's "global test" remark, sure to be made into rope to try to hang him, seemed to refer to having demonstrable justification after the fact. But Bush was right to hammer him for it, for leaving it so open to interpretation, and was one of only a few opportunities Kerry gave that Bush took.
All in all, I thought they both did pretty well, and am not too worried ove who gets declared the "winner."
I think he was so busy trying to counter the "obnoxious" label that he came off poorly.
Laid on.