Perhaps my perception is warped, seeing as how I’m playing Wonkette’s drinking game (and there have been a lot of references to terrorism, Bin Laden and Hussein, so I’ve already had quite a bit to drink), but I think Kerry is doing surprisingly well so far.
Bush quote of the day: “That’s not what commander-in-chiefs does.”
UPDATE: I’m pretty drunk right now, but I thought the debate was roughly a draw. Thoughts?
UPDATE 2: We’re watching Fox News, and the spin is pretty pro-Kerry. So it sounds like maybe Kerry won the debate.
Mmm… beer.
UPDATE 3: CNN’s (obviously very unscientific) internet poll shows Kerry winning the debate 91% to 8% so far.
I’m too drunk to fully comprehend Hugh Hewitt’s “debate scorecard,” but he, on the other hand, thinks Bush won.
UPDATE 4: The MSNBC poll says Kerry won, 73% to 27%.
UPDATE 5: A less positive verdict from Jeff Jarvis, a likely Kerry voter:
I’ve said that I was a “likely Kerry voter” … How likely? Weeks ago, I’d have put that at, oh, 85 percent: not wildly enthusiastic, perhaps, but OK with the decision. Recently, that number has fallen to, say, 75 percent. …
[The debate] made me more unsure about Kerry. He sounds more like Howard Dean and I didn’t want to vote for Dean. He had my likely vote; it was his to lose. He hasn’t lost it … yet. …
So how likely am I now? Peg me at 65 percent and note the trendline. The next debates and the next weeks matter. The election isn’t over for me or for millions and millions of voters. We’re the real pollsters and our results are not in yet.
Fellow swing voter Becky says she’ll tell me her reaction to the debate tomorrow. She has to “sleep on it.”
Of course, by tomorrow we’ll be thinking about Notre Dame vs. Purdue, not Bush vs. Kerry… :)
David says his mom “moved from an Anything but Bush to a For Kerry voter tonight.”
LAST UPDATE BEFORE I PASS OUT GO TO SLEEP: Andrew Sullivan weighs in:
The impact? Kerry has to gain, I think. At the very least, this was a draw on the president’s most favorable turf. I saw it among a group of Dartmouth college students that was mainly pro-Kerry but had a solid pro-Bush presence. It’s odd to hear them laughing out loud at their president; and groaning openly at some of Kerry’s remarks. Afterward, only the Bush supporters seemed concerned that their candidate had lost ground. They should be. Watching Bush last night, I saw a president who isn’t really in control of his office, a man who couldn’t and didn’t defend the conduct of the war except to say that it was “hard work,” who seemed defensive and occasionally rattled. He had some strong points; and I agree with him on the basic matter of whether we should have gone to war. But the argument that we might be better changing horses in the middle of an increasingly deep and troubled river gained traction last night. In some ways, this might turn out to be a version of the 1980 Carter-Reagan match, when Reagan was able [to show], by his persona and presence, that he was up to the job. Yes, Bush is not as bad as Carter and Kerry is no Reagan. But the dynamic was somewhat similar. In other words, Kerry gets back in the game. And edges up a little.
CORRECTION: I’M STILL CONSCIOUS: Conscious enough, at least, to point out that Kaus says Kerry won. “[S]hockingly succinct and sharp. … If he doesn’t get a one or two point boost in the polls, I’ll be very surprised.”
Mmm… bread.
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Categories: Election 2004
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September 30th, 2004 at 9:01:49 pm
What happened to George Bush? Something wrong with his mouth? That’s one of the worst debates he’s ever done–stammering, stuttering, defensive…
What a comparison–steady, calm, confident Kerry vs. little stooping, stammering George. LOL
September 30th, 2004 at 10:34:54 pm
Substance: Kerry by a Furlong. (Hurrah for the Long Face. :)
Style: a Draw. (Assuming it’s even possible to rate two such radically-different presentational styles on the same scoring system.)
Beer: Brendan by a Barrel, apparently. :>
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Noncomparable Styles Tie essentially just reinforces the prior Cultural preferences of the viewer-voters.
Kerry’s substantive win on tonight’s foreign-policy Issues — combined with his consistently looking & sounding altogether Presidential (rallying after a frighteningly weak & nervous Opening answer; whew! for One brief Corroding moment I thought we were Effed, there :) — should shift some of the scarce Undecideds his way & move some Bush-leaners to Undecided, thus improving the EV projections.
Advantage: the Kerryman. :)
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Best Bush CounterPunch: when he nailed JK on his stupid “global” standard (or whatever the ill-chosen noun was; the adjective was “global”) re the circumstances under which he would strike Pre-emptively.
Best Kerry Roundhouse: when he clobbered W on his purposely, stubbornly, dumbarse explanation that we had to invade Iraq because “the enemy attacked us” on Sept. 11.
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Best Brendan Beer: Ye Olde Alpaca Pee (imported :)
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Very Good Debate. Both guys exceeded my Expectations.
But where were the Kerry daughters afterwards, dammit. :) The Bush Twits were onstage. C’mon. :)
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Best Performance, as always: Jim Lehrer.
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Can’t we have Mrs. Cheney debate Mrs. Edwards? :)
September 30th, 2004 at 11:07:29 pm
I caught it on the radio as I was taking my sister to a piano lesson, so I missed any visual cues, but I felt that John Kerry came out a strong winner on this one.
When it came to answering questions and especially when it came to criticizing Bush’s decisions he was very clear and gave concrete examples of what he meant.
Bush’s attempts to paint Kerry as a flip-flopper, which I feared the most, just never seemed to take hold. He never backed it up, except trying to bring up that whole “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time” thing. Of course I think he missed the point with that one. Just because Kerry thinks the initial choice was wrong, doesn’t mean you abandon our troops. A point which Kerry made and I loved the fact that he used a Colin Powell quote to do it.
I agree with user that Kerry was calm and steady and Bush was stammering, stuttering, and mis-speaking far more often.
My mom pointed out something that I missed, but I think is significant. Bush kept referring to Putin by his first name, where as Kerry was much more respectful calling him Mr. Putin or President Putin. Incidentally she moved from an Anything but Bush to a For Kerry voter tonight.
September 30th, 2004 at 11:28:04 pm
“Perhaps my perception is warped, seeing as how I’m playing Wonkette’s drinking game…”
Perhaps Wonkette is Warped. / Naaah! Can’t be. :) She’s all the Rage in our Nation’s Capital, plus she Picked up Zell Miller. Both of Hims. Big & Little. :) She must be Straight. Um, Flat. Er, Rectangular. Regular. Rectallinear. Moistureproofed. Y’know. UnWarped. Whatever. / Have another Beer whydon’tcha. :)
September 30th, 2004 at 11:49:44 pm
Bush refers to the man as Vladimir because the guys act buddy-buddy, and anyone who’s paid attention over the last few years would understand that. In addition, it’s a culture thing: Bush is the cowboy from Texas; Kerry is the diplomat who grew up in France. You and your parents’ visceral reactions are obvious Blue-State reactions, so I’m not surprised at all where you stand–or your parents, for that matter.
Objectively, I’d consider it a sign of weakness for Kerry that it’s taken him until the debates to move anybody-but-Bush voters into the for-Kerry column, but as they say, better late than never.
Brendan, drink lots of water and eat something greasy. Becky’s counting on a good performance tonight, and no I’m not talking about the candidates’. ;-)
September 30th, 2004 at 11:53:27 pm
“I agree with user that Kerry was calm and steady and Bush was stammering, stuttering, and mis-speaking far more often.”
Yeah, me too. / BUT (a) we already Knew that, and (b) as one of the Talking Heads noted afterwards, there are a Helluva lotta Voters who see/hear that & say, ‘Yuh know, he’s just like Me. He’s awwl right.’ Dumb like a Fox. :>
“Bush kept referring to Putin by his first name, whereas Kerry was much more respectful calling him Mr. Putin or President Putin.”
Da. :) See “Fox”, above. :) The Point is that Ol’ George the Crusader & ol’ Vlad the Impaler are on a First name basis, don’tcha see. What’s a few cancelled elections between Friends? :> I’m just relieved that Dubya didn’t publicly call KayJeeBee by his private Nickname for him, whatever it is. Shudder. [Kremlin Cojones? Lubyanka? Gulag? Gitmo?:]
October 1st, 2004 at 12:02:30 am
Andrew, another Bluestate Parent has reinforced your Point; see above ;). But the Kerryman didn’t grow up in France. He grew up in Bretagne. Which as everybody know is the Gallic outpost of Ireland. :) As for Yer man W — he didn’t grow up. Anywhere. :) [But - he still did a Credible job tonight. He’s very good at Faking it. Hey, he graduated Yale. :]
As for “counting on a good performance tonight” — YKADggg. :)
October 1st, 2004 at 3:34:54 am
I listened to the first 2/3 of the debate on my car radio - and it took a couple of minutes for me to realise what was different about Senator Kerry … it’s simple enough … I didn’t hear Thurston Howell speaking …
So I started paying more attention to the words and phrasings, too … and lost count of how many times Senator Kerry “gonna”ed and “doin’” and “goin’” … and the voice was pitched a little lower, too, most of the time …
It would seem he finally found himself someone to coach him … (grin) …
Then I got home - and watched the performances … and had flashbacks to when President Clinton spoke …
Overall, I’d say that Senator Kerry was the (expected) better debater stylistically … and President Bush was seemingly nowhere near as skilled, emphasising Senator Kerry’s “Wrong war, wrong time, wrong way” too often … and then I realised that people will consciously remember those parts, and will filter them out - and, each time President Bush said something else, the audience’s critical faculties were concentrating and waiting and watching for yet another repetition, while the President’s important phrases slipped right on by to where they will be stored, and remembered, and effective …
Overall, I doubt if many minds were changed … and I expect that, after people sleep on it, the President will gain a point or two … and Senator Kerry will have lost a bunch more of the votes from families of active duty military, and any military who were watching …
October 1st, 2004 at 9:06:58 am
“I expect that, after people sleep on it, the President will gain a point or two … and Senator Kerry will have lost a bunch more of the votes from families of active duty military, and any military who were watching …”
I doubt that, Alasdair. One point that Kerry kept hammering is that he actually has a plan to bring the troops home. That might (might) be enough to sway a few military-family votes. After all, with the so-called “backdoor draft” (I don’t like this term because it makes it sound like people who signed up for the military didn’t know that their times of service could be lengthened . . . they did know, they just didn’t think it’d actually happen when they signed their names on the dotted lines), there may be enough people who are ready to bring their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers home to actually go for Kerry’s plan. (And Andrew, I’m saying that this is a possibility, not a sure thing. This might happen.)
Personally, I can’t wait for Edwards to rip Cheney apart on Tuesday night. I don’t care much about the “Town Hall” debate next week, but I’m really looking forward to the domestic policy debate . . .
October 1st, 2004 at 9:49:20 am
Oh Josh, that’s a good one.
It’s time the little trial lawyer gets him commupance. I really do feel sorry for Edwards as he has no idea what’s waiting for him.
October 1st, 2004 at 10:05:41 am
Did anyone else notice that Bush said, “I don’t hold it against you that […] you went to Yale […]” When Bush also went to Yale? More evidence that Bush thinks the electorate is dumb…
October 1st, 2004 at 10:18:49 am
Um, I think that was a deliberate self-deprecating reference.
October 1st, 2004 at 10:48:56 am
But it didn’t come across that way! The way Bush looked as he was saying it (stumbling over the words, and looking rather confused), he confused me for a moment. I had to take a step back and say, “Wait a minute! Bush went to Yale also!” (”And to you C students, you, too, can become President of the United States”)
October 1st, 2004 at 11:15:11 am
It was pretty obvious to me what Bush meant with the Yale comment, but, okay.
Alasdair, I think Kerry gained more traction than Bush did with this debate. The question is can he maintain that momentum. I don’t think he can, or will, if Bush responds effectively in the coming days. Bush is far better at getting his message out via the campaign trail than he is on a stage behind a podium next to his opponent.
I think Kerry might have gained some military votes, or at least held Bush to a draw. From my experience with military guys, they have a general attitude towards strategy: Just let me do my job (aka bomb the shit outta them), and we’ll win. Kerry, knowing that he needs to pander to every corner, smartly brought up Fallujah and said he would not have backed down. Never mind that we backed down in Fallujah as an experiment to see if we could trust the Sunnis to control their own–an experiment I’m confident Kerry would have engaged in as well if he were making the final call, as blowing the city to smithereens would not have looked very good on al-Jazeera or BBC. But in hindsight, it appears that us hawks had the correct instinct–that the Sunnis were not to be trusted and that we should’ve leveled that city with force–and it’s an easy tactic for Kerry to say, “Well that’s what I would have done” and thus win some army boys’ votes.
October 1st, 2004 at 12:53:49 pm
The sense I am getting from the assorted polls seems to be - Kerry wins the debate and Bush and Kerry both gain a little ground with respect to the November vote.
The main reason that I think that Bush will be found to have gained even more ground amongst military-associated families ties in with your comment, Andrew. Military folk tend to be concrete, direct, and tend to prefer a decisive approach. If the first decision seems not to be working, then make another one. President Bush has that as his track record.
Senator Kerry’s record is one of talking about decisions, and going through full 720s, 180 at a time … (Is that a Tango (NO, Joe, not orange) since it’s not a Waltz ?) … his ‘actions’ are his votes, where his track record is to vote for something before he votes against it, except when he votes against something before he votes for it …
The polls I want to see are the ones taken during tomorrow (Saturday) and Sunday … to see if my own prediction as to the end results from the debate proves to have been based on flawed premises or to be correct … I’m not claiming that the current 1% gain for Bush counts, since Kerry seems to have gotten it, too … my prediction is with respect to the Bush vs Kerry numbers …
Oh - and before I forget … the “Joshing”, above …
What would a ‘President’ Kerry do if France or Germany didn’t give him a passing grade in the global test ? Would that not mean that he would have to leave the troops in Iraq ? (grin)
I listened to most of the debate and watched about 1/3 of it … I heard Senator Kerry’s words that he has a plan for this and a plan for that … there is, unfortunately, a problem with those words, since I am not able to find anywhere that tells me (or us or the US) what any of those plans actually may be …
From my own perspective, a more serious problem is to be hearing “I have a plan” with no details of the plan, and no supporting words to explain how the proposed plan will avoid the problems encountered by his opponent in the debate …
As a Systems Programmer, if Senator Kerry was a vendor, I’m thinking “Microsoft is trying to sell me vaporware” … I’m not sure which is the appropriate analogous vendor for President Bush - IBM doesn’t quite fit …
(pensive grin) The words which spring to mind are “Sticky Side Down” for Senator Kerry - and “Sticky Side Up” for President Bush … with Senator Kerry being a fluffy white bread made from carefully milled fine wheat, edges more manicured than trimmed, but lacking substance or flavour … with President Bush being a peasant bread made from the grains easily to hand, solid, even coarse and chewy, with a flavour too strong for many, curiously satisfying …
(grinning) I look forward to the
Kerry-Loy-alist responses …
October 1st, 2004 at 2:00:13 pm
Alasdair, I hope you’re right, but I think many military guys can glaze over the contradictions and waffles and will zero in on “I fought in Vietnam… I know how tough these decisions can be… I know what it’s like to see your buddies killed… We should have sent more troops, sealed the borders, and wiped out Fallujah….” It sounds good, it’s just that everything that he says in those ellipses shows the man to not be credible on the matter.
I mean, in one breath he says “I made the mistake of miscommunicating how I voted on the $87 billion; George Bush made the mistake of going to war. Which is worse?”, and then later, in response to a question that quotes a younger Kerry saying, “How do tell a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” he says that the 1000 lives lost weren’t for a mistake. I mean, which is it, Sen. Kerry?
Or he complains about the $200 billion and says it could have gone to police and firefighters and emergency responders et al, but then says we should have had more troops on the ground, should have sealed the borders, should be spending money faster, should be procuring and sending to troops better equipment sooner (does he think expediting bears no cost?), and so on. I’m sorry, but which is it: Should the resources have stayed stateside, or should we be committing more resources–and faster and more efficiently–in Iraq?
Or he says that it was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time because we failed to get our allies on board, that it was a grand diversion from Osama, that we are contributing too high a percentage of troops and funding, when he knows as well as Bush and the generals know that our allies’ forces are simply too weak and underfunded to contribute much, so we have to take what we can get, and that our special forces guys in Afghanistan certainly don’t believe we had Osama cornered but then let him get away to go play games in Iraq, and that the Oil for Food scandal shows that our allies weren’t interested in funding or contributing to the war effort because their hands were in the illicit cookie jar, and so on.
No, the generals and commanders like Tommy Franks know the truth, and so they support the president, but the grunts? The grunts hear, “We shoulda struck the terrorists hard in Fallujah” and cheer, and then mistakenly cast their vote for the fraudulent candidate.
I love our men and women in uniform, Alasdair, but that doesn’t mean they’re any brighter or less susceptible to the Medicine Man politician than any other American.