Will You Watch the Debate?

by the way, who else knew that the U.S was making nulear bunker busters?

JustWonders: Thank you so much for changing your sig line. That made me laugh almost as much as Setanta's! ... and I needed a laugh!

First, Mr. Blair will have to get out of his hospital bed. I fear his days as gallant leader have ended.......


Joe

Well, for what its worth the Question of the Day on msnbc.com is "Who won the debate?", and the score right now is 72% Kerry, 28% Bush, with 155,000 answers in. And before you go, well, its MSNBC, yesterday I clicked on an online MSNBC poll on "who are you goinbg to vote for" and it had 57% Bush. OK, lemme check if Foxnews.com has a poll ;-)

That "stubbornly wrong" stood up Bill Occom and NIMH all the same, JW.

And the DU flames on.

read their website, they have been planning all day to flood the polls with Kerry responses.

standard liberal MO. Make the decision before you hear the facts, sad to think these people are allowed to drive cars, work and vote without someone holding their hand.

"Who do you think won the debate?"; CNN online poll only has 16,000 votes, 90% of which for Kerry.

I looked on Foxnews.com, honest guv, but I cant find a poll like that there.

Well, not that you can take them without a rather large Andean mountain range of salt, anyway, obviously ...

MORE OF THE SAME

Kerry's campaign slogan is a negative. It doesn't speak directly about him, it speaks negatively against the incumbent.

His slogan raises the question, does the American public want more of the same?

It raises another question, what's the alternative?

I think Kerry defined several times tonight what the alternatives are : Finish the task in Iraq even though it's a badly planned mess, refocus the war of Terror on AL Queda where it belonged for the past twenty months and re-establish the leadership position of the United States with it's allies. What could be clearer?

Joe

Wow!! 90%

I was pleased. How many of the broadcasters had split screens? (I watched on C-Span, too). Because it was what Bush was doing when he wasn't talking that was really damaging. Those flared nostrils, the petulant little squinched up face, the swallowing, the shifty eyes... while Kerry, in contrast, listened pleasantly and neutrally.

Kerry handled the pissing contest of praise better -- the character question, where Bush went first and praised Kerry's service, etc. Kerry did some nice, heartfelt stuff about Bush's daughters and wife, it was working! Bush was melting! Bush was going into buddy-buddy mode! And then he very subtly segued into the certainty thing, and Bush was just whapped upside the head -- his body language got all tense again, shifty eyed again, flared nostrils again. I think it sent a good meta-message about strength and diplomatic skills -- and how those go together.

Did you notice how they elevated Bush on the split screen so his head was at the same level as Kerry? The distance from the top of Bush's head to the top of the podium was much less than for Kerry -- Bush's podium was about 6 inches "higher".

Other random observations that I haven't seen here yet...

- Why hasn't anyone jumped on the Saddam instead of Osama freudian slip? E.G. was there and confirmed it, it wasn't just a captioning typo. Some question about OBL, and Bush said "Of course we're after Saddam Hussein... I mean Bin Laden..."

- Good zinger from Kerry early on -- something about Bush changing his mind, and then "his campaign has a word for that" (deadpan.)

- Bush took over Kerry's space at the beginning, came out first, strode over faster, and didn't back off, so Kerry had to shake his hand in Kerry's space.

- Bush's equation of Al Qaeda with Chechens (school shooting.)

- Good pointing out of "they attacked us" by Kerry, when Bush was talking about Iraq.

Meanwhile, some in-depth debate analysis on Jessi Klein's CNN blog:

"More of the same" isn't a campaign slogan! It's a characterization of what we'd get under Bush -- a characterization of Bush's "plans." A way to undermine "stay the course" -- I think it's good.

Thanks for clarifying it, Joe.

My stance regarding my vote has allways been based on the negative. I do not want more of the same, not necessarily anyone but Bush, but not more of the same, either.

My vote will be in vain anyway. I live in Texas.

I'm considering voting for myself.

If you're in Texas, vote Green!

On my behalf ... represent the disenfranchised foreign victims of American policy ... pretty please? ;-)

"More of the same" was Kerry's most direct, terse statement of his campaign.

I thougth the way Kerry pounced on Bush's slip about "they attacked us" was devastating. It doesn't matter though; most of the American public think that also. The Bush Administration has done an excelent job confusing Iraq with 9/11.

Vote for Kerry anyway, even in Texas, miracles can happen.


In Oklahoma they are about to vote for a Democratic Senator for the first time in twenty years or so. It's what happens when you get a candidate so doctrinaire that he can't conceive of a change in position (sound familiar?)

By the way, when Republicans change their minds, and they do, they don't call it a flipflop, they call it a sharp shift in their thinking. Big difference, huh?

Kerry wiped the floor with Bush

Yeah, Bush is Looking Good!

nimn, you are one of my favorite posters here on A2K. I don't respond much to threads but I follow them religiously.

I certainly will vote Green on your behalf.

And the Bush administration should be called on it. Was thrilled to see it.

I was also on pins and needles throughout the whole thing... but it was cathartic to finally see them face to face rather than through proxies and sycophants wo wouldn't actually call them (OK I'm thinking of Bush here) on anything. Say something dumb, get called on it 30 seconds later. Yay!

For clarification; "Stood up" is a boxing reference that loosely means you were struck hard enough to make you stand up straight (very bad idea)... any harder and you go down.

I'd say those stats make perfect sense, Nimh. Kerry surprised me by sounding as human as he did. He's made major improvements on his ability to speak, just since the convention. Word for word, he whooped Bush's ass. Where he's in trouble is I don't believe his words. I don't believe he believes his words. I think my prediction earlier will come true. Kerry did a better job, but I don't think the polls will reward him for it.

Bush's words don't offer much. But he's proven that come hell or high water he does believe them (right or wrong). Americans like strong decisive leaders. His stuttering, stammering repetitious suggestion, that Kerry changes directions like a weathervane, is true. As dumb as he may have sounded making the point, the point was made in spades.

Did anyone who has been paying a reasonable amount of attention learn anything from either of these buffoons tonight?

Because they both did it. Kerry did it first actually, then Bush did 10 or 15 minutes later.