Early takes on the debate from 7 blogs

[Thurston Howell IV]

Daily Kos
http://dailykos.com/

SUSA snap polls, West Coast onlyby kos </user/kos>
Sat Oct 9th, 2004 at 04:27:03 GMT

Colorado (511 adults who watched entire debate)
42% Bush
41% Kerry
16% No Clear Winner
California (510 adults who watched entire debate)
38% Bush
48% Kerry
13% No Clear Winner
Oregon (532 adults who watched entire debate)
38% Bush
47% Kerry
15% No Clear Winner
Washington (498 adults who watched debate in full)
36% Bush
49% Kerry
14% No Clear Winner


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Talking Points Memo
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/index-old.php

Having listened to the whole thing very carefully, I thought it was basically a draw.
President Bush was certainly more coherent and on-his-feet than he was a week ago. But then, that's a pretty low standard.
If I'm right and this was basically a draw, I think that represents a victory for Kerry for two reasons.
First, momentum seems clearly to be on Kerry's side. The president needed to arrest that momentum and I don't think he did.
The other reason turns on something I said last week. The basis of President Bush's resurgence in late August and September was based less on confidence in him than in his campaign's effective effort to portray Kerry as not an acceptable commander-in-chief. Kerry's strong performance in the first debate undermined that impression and knocked the race back to parity. I don't think anything happened in this debate to change that.
What I do think you'll have from this debate is some steadying of the president's supporters. Even the president's most die-hard supporters were knocked for a loop by his stammering and wobbly performance last week. After seeing this performance I think they'll feel like they saw the candidate they expected. And that will steady them and buoy their morale.
Now, as I've said from the beginning, what matters in these debates is less the 90 minute encounter than the spin war that unfolds after it ends. That's even more so with this one since on a Friday night (and given it's the second debate) the viewership will be down.
I think the president and the last questioner gave the Democrats a real opportunity. The fiscal health of the country is a wreck. The country faces an unfolding disaster in Iraq. And numerous examples emerge day after day showing how that disaster grew directly from bad decisions the president made. And faced with a questioner who asked for just three mistakes he thinks he's made over four years, he couldn't come up with one. His answer was to say that on each of the big issues he's gotten everything exactly right.
Seeing all we see on our TVs, he can't think of one wrong decision? He won't level with the public. And if he can't think of one thing he's gotten wrong, reelecting him means four years of more of the same.

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Wonkette
http://www.wonkette.com/
9:00 Charlie Gibson's gonna hold them to their time limits "forcefully but politely." Funny, that's what we like about Mr. Wonkette.
9:03 Kerry pats Bush on the back! Checking for that wire. . .
9:05 Weapon of mass deception! Hey, that's a. . . joke!
9:07 "I can see why your colleagues think he changes his position a lot... Because he does!" Bush was like wetting his pants to say that. And so he said it again!
9:27 Bush is grinding his teeth into stumps. Oh, fuck: "That answer almost made me want to scowl." . . . Uhm. Yeah. I think I could hear crickets. I mean, that joke bombed. Bombed like a bad war.
9:29 Oh, yes. The rumors on the "internets." The interweb. Whatever. You have to excuse him. . . he mainly just uses it for porn.
9:33 Good thing that no one really knows who Charlie Gibson is, or Bush steamrolling over him like a grumpy elderly driver would probably get noticed.
9:40 BREAKING: Canadians want to kill you with their pretend drugs.
9:41 Even worse: There is a third world (Jupiter?) that wants to kill you with its pretend drugs. However, Bush's plan does let you get a dimebag for just over a buck, if you're old. . .
9:42 A reader explains: "third world" means "people who do not look like me." So we revise our warning: Brown people want to kill you with their pretend drugs.
9:47 Again with the OB-GYNS. Let them practice their love, already. Also: Kerry is the first presidential candidate in history to go out of his way to remind people he's a lawyer.
9:53 Hey, wait: Bush comes from a "school of thought"? Where to begin. . .
9:54 I THINK I AM LOSING MY HEARING BECAUSE BUSH IS SCREAMING SO LOUD.
9:57 Kerry acknowledges wealth of the the men on the stage. Charlie Gibson chuckles, thinks to self, "Yes... yes, I am rich."
10:10 Did the President of the United States really just ask Charlie Gibson if he "needed wood"? Where's Bob Dole when you really need him. . .
10:15 Ack. A thoughtful, morally-charged question! But Kerry respects the "feeling behind it." After all, he's not pro-stem cell research using cells from "abortions or something like that." Whatever: Kerry is friends with Superman!
10:18 Shorter Bush: He was against embryonic stem cell research before he was for it.
10:28 Q: Name three times you've made a mistake. A: I WAS RIGHT TO GO TO WAR. AND THAT'S A TRICK QUESTION. FUCK YOU.

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BradBlog
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00000706.htm#comments

Fox News Pre-coverage: On the Right, Host Brit Hume, Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke and Bill Kristol.

On the Left: Nadda. Nobody. Nothing.

There's your Fair & Balance.
OUCH. Step on Gibson. That's not good! He's pulling an Al Gore (overadjusting to compensate for his sleep-walk last time!)
Debate just about even as of now...essentially.

But on that, I think Kerry wins. Kerry's support is soft amongst those that don't know if he's up for the task. If he stands up to Bush, and this thing ends "even", Kerry ends up the winner.

He gets the support of those who didn't *want* to vote for Bush, but were not sure of Kerry.

Kerry's *at least* as strong as Bush tonight. Shoring up his big 'mo. Overall win for Kerry if this continues as is.
MSNBC consensus leans towards "Bush won cuz he didn't lose".

I think they got it wrong.

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AmericaBlog
http://americablog.blogspot.com/

Bill Kristol: "I guess I think if you think the President was doing okay and didn't need a win in this debate, he did fine, but I think, if one thinks that Bush missed an awful lot of opportunities to go after Kerry in the first debate he had to make some of them up in this debate, I'm not sure he really succeeded in doing so."

Brit Hume: "Is it now fair to say that in each of these debates in terms of marshaling arguments, and remembering them and presenting them that this is something John Kerry has proved he is very good at. And that it doesn't play to the president's strong suit."

Jonah Goldberg: "On the question of whether Bush did everything he needed to tonight, I don't think so. I think he helped himself, but Kerry leaves these debates energized."

FactCheck.org: Bush did own a share of a timber company
by John in DC - 10/8/2004 11:33:50 PM

The liar <http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@DocID=265.html>.
President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)

I thought Kerry didn't have as good of answers as last time - he missed more opportunities to fight back than he did last time. But he still was fine, had good answer, had good facts, and had a few zingers. And most importantly, he was presidential and was just as good as the president. For the majority who don't think Bush deserves a second chance, Kerry has proven himself worthy. Now to see if the polls agree.

And finally, I would have told Bush to shut the fuck up if I were Charlie. When Bush insisted on speaking even though it wasn't his turn, that was simply bizarre and arrogant and rude. It was Bush at his typical, and Bush at his worst. The question remains whether the public will think it was strong and feisty or boorish and pushy.

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Rising Hegemon
http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/

This was another decisive win for Kerry. This time because Kerry was good, not just because Bush was weird.

Of course, Bush was still weird.

1. "Off-road diesel engines"
2. "Rumors on the internets"
3. "Don't Make me Kick your ass Charlie!"
4. "Man, I hate those crazy Canadians and their dangerous prescription medications manufactured by American Businesses."
5. "I didn't like the Dred Scott case. I don't know what the fuck it meant, but I didn't like it."
6. "Plessy v. Ferguson on the other hand sounds like my kind of decision."
7. "I've got Wood!"
8. "I've still never made a mistake worth admitting."

And finally, Dear Leader was blinking up a goddamned storm. If he knows morse code he expresses himself with far more lucidity using his eyelids than he does with his mouth. On the other hand, this is Bush we are talking about, he can barely speak English, let along any other type of language.

The Whores will try their best to talk up the Chimp because the GOP is 0 for 2 going into the night and they don't want to to quickly call it 0 and 3. But eventually -- by next Wednesday they will.

Then as long as Bush keeps his pants up, he'll be declared the winner for sure.

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Electablog
http://www.electablog.com/

Here are a few of my takes:

- Bush was more forceful than usual. But he was also yelling. One wants to occasionally build to a crescendo during a debate. He yelled. And yelled. And rarely looked into the eye of the person who had asked the question. He whined a bit. Not sure why? He was funny and thoughtful in the last few minutes, but I wonder how many viewers stuck around.

- Both guys picked at each other too much. Too much granularity. Not enough vision. I think that hurt both. But it hurt Bush more because he is the President.

- Kerry started out well and took my advice from last week. He explained the tactics that Bush is employing. That was good. He said: "Cheryl, the president didn't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so he's really turned his campaign into a weapon of mass deception. And the result is that you've been bombarded with advertisements suggesting that I've changed a position on this or that or the other."

That was a good move. But Kerry didn't back up this strategy at two key moments. First, he let Bush get away with the global test distortion. Then he let him get away with the remark about Kerry's desire to call a summit to deal with threats. This was his chance to have the "there he goes again" moment and he missed it.

- Let's tax Charles Gibson at 100% and then the rest of us can party.

- As the night wore on, I saw Bush getting more testy and targeting Kerry more. It was forceful, but I just had a feeling it was leveling the playing field and he was giving up the Oval Office advantage.

- "Need some wood?" Proof again that Wonkette
http://www.wonkette.com has changed politics forever. This will be interesting. If Bush does own timber, he is deep trouble. Uh oh... http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@DocID=265

- After Kerry gave what I thought was a thoughtful and understanding response the abortion question, Bush jabbed at him. I thought in general that this tactic was overdone by Bush. Not if he had been challenger, but because he is president.

- The it's "never quite as simple" exchange really defines this race.

Overall, this debate didn't have the fireworks of the last one. I thought Bush was better and used humor effectively. Kerry was good, but just good. For the second time straight, he was more presidential. He could've used a couple of Red Bulls.

Bush was terrible on the mistakes question. But Kerry missed an opportunity by not answering that question with a list of mistakes he himself has made. That would have been a difference maker. He should have started his response by saying: "I'm not afraid to admit I've made mistakes and I'm going to tell you about a few of them right now." Instead he went back to Iraq but that point was made. This was a really big moment and an opportunity that may not come again.

My gut says this debate doesn't move the polls or change current trends much. It might stop some of the bleeding from Camp Bush. W improved his performance but not enough to overcome the facts that face him both on the economy and in Iraq. The post-debate chatter will matter less than in the other debates because it's Friday and we're sick of this right now.

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George W Buy
http://www.georgewbuy.blogspot.com/

Kerry's Answer on Prescription Drugs
Missed the punchline. Kerry's gotta provide the evidence. Not just say Bush sides with the powerful. Give the facts: Drug money to Bush. Bush gives billions to drug makers. That's simple.

Kerry's answer on the enviroment
Theme is that Bush takes us wrong direction, takes us backwards, refuses science. Not dirty air leads to kids having asthma, while energy companies give millions and Bush does their biddign.Do we really care about "Kyoto" or do we care about our kids? Our seniors?

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1. thanks

[daveskilt]

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