Due to my obvious bias against Bush, I don't think my comments can be by bipartisan. So, I won’t go commenting on who won. Though I will say that due to lack of true (Kennedy-Ragan type) chrisma the debate was more about substance. I was disappointed that none of them clearly stated what they intend to do about Iraq. Kerry did mention about getting more people involved but how?
Bush did well with coming back to the perceived or otherwise ‘inconsistency’ mantra against Kerry, as this was his last chance among debates to press it on. The next debates are about issues where he can’t make that remark more than once in his speech. It might sound repetitive or annoying to Kerry supporters but I do believe it will resonate with his party base and undecided. Even though I totally disagree but paraphrasing John Stewart, American people don’t care if their president takes them to a ditch, they don’t like him blinking while driving into it.
Do you get the sense that there are truely no "undecided voters" anymore? Things are so polarized that either you are for one of the candidates, or against the other.
I have said this before, and will say it again. I will probably vote for Bush, because he is slightly preferable to Kerry. Kerry was not the sharpest Senator, and has a rather poor legislative history. He has not held responsible positions in the Senate, and has had very little legislative success. If your look at his voting record, you will see that Kerry actually opposed the 1991 Gulf war also, prefering to give "Sanctions" time to work!
He consistantly voted against expansions to the CIA in the 90's, but has reversed his decision. He voted FOR the Patriot act, but has now changed his mind. A great deal of our troubles today with North Korea and with Al Qaedda are tracable not to Bush, but to 8 years of Clinton. Frankly I did not vote for Bush the first time because he is not the sharpest tool in the shed, and that still holds true. But the only reason we have Kerry being put forward here is that there is a certain segment who will always vote for "anybody but Bush". That is a terrible way to jump from the frying pan into the fire....
And in answer to the question, who does Kerry associate with, it is largely a collection of Kennedy clones and ex-staffers. The real brains behind Kerry is Kennedy, and to quote Pedro Martinez, Teddy is his daddy. I have met with Kerrys staff extensively, and they were joined at the hip with Teddys staff. Up here in the NorthEast, you either love the Kennedys or hate them. With Teddys son as my current State Rep, I cannot stomach annother Kennedy plant in our midst. (as in houseplant). Undoubtedly I will grind my teeth as I vote...
John Kerry came out more intellectual superior than Bush which is appalling considering that he has been kinda laid back relax dude. As a registered Dem, I worried how he will deliever his message but at the end of the debate, I feel confident in him to lead the U.S. in a direction where this nation will re-gain the respect of the world it deserves.
Kerry OWNED Bush. Last night he was great. Concise, to the point and thoroughly defended himself for those that believed he was flip-flopping (that is to those that wanted to listen). Frankly, I didn't think he would be able to pull it off.
Most of the cable news outlets kept talking about how much both were preparing, but it seemed as if they were saying Bush was doing even more prep work than Kerry. Didn't look like it at all. He had some lines to put Kerry down, but Kerry was prepared with a response. Bush had no rebuttal. Bush didn't follow the rules too much either. Jim Lehrer was supposed to choose when to continue a conversation, but Bush would always signal for a extension and would just use it to say what he'd already said 5 times previously. Don't get me wrong, Kerry definitely could've done better, but this was Bush's unravelling. The bar was really set to high for W. People thought his bluntness would win like it did for him in 2000. Well, he didn't the debates in 2000 (although he probably won the 2nd debate). It's just the media made everyone think he did.
And that's what Kerry and Trippy and the rest of Kerry's advisors have to prevent; the power of Karl Rove. Make no mistake, Kerry won last night. If you disagree, then watch a C-SPAN version of the debate where they have split screen the entire time. Bush's body language was just like Gore's sighs in 2000s, and it might come back to bite him in his posterior. However, Karl Rove will do his damnedest to make sure people forget who actually won the debate, and I wouldn't be surprised if in a weeks time Bush is considered the winner due to Rove. He did it to Gore, and if Kerry wants to make this thing a race to the finish, he and the Trippmister along with the rest of his campaign staff got to be on the ball tonight and not just celebrate a premature victory because Rove's first attack on the Kerry/Edwards ticket will be awaiting for them when they wake up.
Remember This: which I thought Kerry should have used as a catch phrase: "MORE OF THE SAME". He also should have put more emphasis on Bush's inability to adjust, better known to as flip-flop when the Repubs refer to Kerry. And, tie it into "MORE OF THE SAME".
Bush's "odds" of winning the election have actually INCREASED today! he is up 1.4% from yesterday! I agree that Kerry won the "debate", but that appears to have very little effect on the election.
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*Originally posted by Kaleem: *
, I cannot bring myself to vote for Kerry.
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Then don’t bring it. You live in Texas where Bush is going to win anyways you vote for him or not. Real election is only in few swing states. If you live in one of those states than your vote really counts. Thanks to electoral vote system.
Then don’t bring it. You live in Texas where Bush is going to win anyways you vote for him or not. Real election is only in few swing states. If you live in one of those states than your vote really counts. Thanks to electoral vote system.
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Thank you agnet sahib, I wish I had known that before and should abstain from voting.
Now I KNOW you're smarter than this, nobody can predict what will happen less than 24 hours after a debate and to do so is to engage in sheer drudgery.
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*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
Update:
Bush's "odds" of winning the election have actually INCREASED today! he is up 1.4% from yesterday! I agree that Kerry won the "debate", but that appears to have very little effect on the election.
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I think you lost a lot of credibility by stating that Bush has surrounded himself with smart people. Would that be Ashcroft, Ralph Reed, Falwell, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz and Cheney? What makes you think Kerry wouldn't have a stellar surrounding cast? Who exactly are you afraid that Kerry might bring along that could possibly worse than the Bush junta?
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*Originally posted by Kaleem: *
Look, I will not argue with you that Bush is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, however, a sign of an intelligent person is that he surrounds himself with people who are. That is exactly what he did. I am afraid of the people Kerry will associate himself with. To me he is just not the right candidate. I do not agree with a lot of Bush administration policies, but, I cannot bring myself to vote for Kerry.
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First debate was the only chance Bush had to dominate because war against terrorism was the only accomplishment Bush could claim. Too bad he blew that chance. He is a complete failure on demotic issues. Kerry will absolutely dominate the next 2 debates, which will be mostly on domestic issues. Can’t wait to see that carnage.
If somoene was hearing both men for the first time, he would think that Kerry was the President and Bush the challenger. The spin doctors can say all they want about Bush still winning this, blah blah blah, but you underestimate what happened before an audience of over 55 million Americans last night. This might be the beginning of the famous Kerry fightback.
Excellent point, yesterday was supposed to be the knock out punch. The Bush people first wanted two debates, they then forced foreign policy to be the first, since it was their strong point, they then forced the podium to be at least 10 feet apart so their shorter President doesn't look like a school boy next to Kerry (i'm not making this up), they then tried to make the room temperature hotter so kerry could sweat, they then established insane guidelines for being succinct during the debate. What happened? It all backfired. In fact, I think the shorter format actually let Kerry find his voice without being verbose and thus, for the first time in this campaign, he found his voice and leveled with the American people. What happens now is anybody's guess but I think the Democratic base is freshly rejuvenated and with five weeks to go, don't be shocked that the election becomes a dead heat again.
BTW Kerry was a champion debater at Yale and considered to be one of the best that ever stepped foot on that campus.
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*Originally posted by Agent Smith: *
First debate was the only chance Bush had to dominate because war against terrorism was the only accomplishment Bush could claim. Too bad he blew that chance. He is a complete failure on demotic issues. Kerry will absolutely dominate the next 2 debates, which will be mostly on domestic issues. Can’t wait to see that carnage.
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*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
A great deal of our troubles today with North Korea and with Al Qaedda are tracable not to Bush, but to 8 years of Clinton.
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Ahh falling back on the old ‘blame Clinton’ bit, we all know Bin Laden was supported by Reagan and Bush back in the 1980's in Afghanistan before they left the region a swamp for terrorists to breed in, that wasn’t Clinton friend.
"Ahh falling back on the old ‘blame Clinton’ bit, we all know Bin Laden was supported by Reagan and Bush back in the 1980's in Afghanistan before they left the region a swamp for terrorists to breed in, that wasn’t Clinton friend."
Actually that is factually incorrect. Read the book by the Wash Post editor called "Ghost Wars", excellent research. The US and the Saudis essentially had a "matching" program. If the US gave a dollar to the Afghan rebels, the Saudi's matched it. The US provided surplus guns from all over the world, but they had very little voice in how the guns were used, or who they were distributed to.
For the most part the US supported fighters who would have consititued what was later known as the Northern Alliance, and that support was cash. Down in the south our weapons found their way to mostly Pashtun fighters hands, and those contacts were carefully controlled and distributed by none other than the ISI, and PAKISTAN!
OBL was generally known as a "quartermaster", and he is not known to have actually participated in hostilities. Virtually all of his funding came from the Saudi matching program. His first terrorist acts were during the Clinton regime. He was particularly miffed that the Mujahadeen did not defend Saudi in 1991, and this set in motion his terrorist ambitions, along with the goal of ousting the House of Saud.
Clinton DID have a number of missed opportunities when OBL was in Sudan, they knew where he lived, and they could have gotten to him very early and nipped this in the bud. Those are facts. The facts on the failed agreement with North Korea are even worse. Bush is holding back a lot in terms of not blaming the Dems for some big policy failures.