Ok, let's try this again. Wireless, while the best thing since sliced
bread, also sucks the battery power on the laptop like a frat boy sucks
on a keg tap. I had this post all done and wham! wee bastard acted, indeed, like a wee bastard and shut down on me.
I will try to be quick about this because I know you're all dying
to know what I thought about the debate.
Kerry was stronger than I expected him to be, and he almost came off as
sincere to me, which is somewhat worrying. I know that Kerry's been
everywhere on his Iraq position: but does the average
independent/undecided know this? I have no idea. They might, given all
the advertising, but if they don't, well, I can understand that they
might have found his performance impressive and very presidential,
which is exactly what they wanted. All Kerry had to do to lose this
debate was act like he has on the campaign trail. He didn't, however.
While he slipped his big toe into the wonk pool, he never jumped in
whole-hog, like Al Gore. Someone in Democrat City is learning the
lessons of the past. I don't know who it is, but whomever beat Kerry
into submission deserves a bottle of Jack Daniels, a hotel room and
some willing young campaign workers. They had a hard task: to keep him
from imploding and they managed to achieve it. Bush, while he seemed a
little peevish when Kerry was speaking, did what he needed to do: he
stayed on message and did his deal. That's all he needed to do. But
it's the "soft bigotry of low expectations" all over again, to my mind.
And this is strictly a gut feeling, but I got the feeling in 2000 that
Bush's advisors were sitting in the background, keeping their fingers
crossed, whispering, "Don't screw it up. Don't screw it up." I got the
same impression again tonight. All he needed to do was not
screw up. I wanted him to really go after Kerry. I think he could have
done more to hammer home his points. But he chose the safe route and
simply stayed on message. I think it was an effective means of debating
Kerry, but not a wildly successful one.
What's going to come out in the wash? Well, I don't think Kerry's going
to benefit tremendously from his performance. This is going to be
another non-bounce event for him. He might pull one or two polling
points, but nothing that will shoot him beyond the margin of error in
most polls. Neither is Bush going to pull away, but will stay steady
instead. He was impressive in his consistency, but I don't think it's
going to help him to make his lead into a dominating one.
So, in essence, it's a draw. Not the most original conclusion to be
drawing, given every pundit on TV seems to be saying the same damn
thing, but that's my conclusion. Others, however, disagree. Steve-o's calling it for Dubya.