Bouncer wrote:My view:
Kerry won. Or rather, he avoided losing. He did two things he had to do. One, he made himself look more Presidential. People, as opposed to just voting against Bush could now see themselves voting FOR Kerry. That was important. More importantly though, he survived intact in Bush's strongest arena, Foreign policy. Now we go to the domestic policy debates, and that is going to give Kerry a chance to open some huge cans o' whoopass on Bush.
Overall I give it a win to Kerry for being on offense more, scoring more hits while taking fewer, and adjusting faster on his feet. Bush gets some points for consitency of message, but having just watched Star Wars over the weekend it reminded me of one of the guys flying down the trench on the Death Star. "Stay on target! Stay on Target!" *BOOM*. It actually backfired a little bit I think, because he came across as almost a bit muleheaded at times. "Certain, but wrong." as Kerry put it. (paraphrasing is mine).
Another thing that hurt Bush was the split screen we frequently saw. It made him look smaller than Kerry (he is) and that hurt him a bit. People want a strong/tall leader. Maybe it's a lizard brain alpha male thing. Whatever, the point is that Bush looked smaller in stature, and that didn't help. The reason for that wasn't media manipulation, but rather the camera people trying to keep the eyes of the candidates at the same level 3/4's of the way up the screen and head size relatively close. This meant tilting slightly down towards Bush and up at Kerry. It made Kerry look taller by comparison, and more authoritative because of that. It's a mental trick we play on ourselves. Bush WAS beter at speaking to the camera and the audience at home though, so it might be a wash in that department.
I noticed that it took both candidates a while to get used to (but Bush I think took far longer) the quiet of the audience. They're used to hearing cheers and crowd reaction and approval. Bush more so as his rally's are VERY heavily vetted for only the purest of the pure. The dead silence of the audience clearly threw both of them off their stride for a bit, but Kerry adjusted faster, probably due to his speaking on the Senate floor for the Congressional record. The politicians speak in what is almost a dead empty chamber at night as a way of getting what they wanted to say "in the record" so they can't be challenged on incomplete statements made during daytime sessions (because of time limitations). You may have seen them on C-Span doing this at odd hours. Anyways, I think the audience silence was something he was more comfortable with than Bush, who likes to gauge his speaking by public reaction.
I also think that Bush made a strategic error by not attacking Kerry on character. This creates a problem for Bush by not rising to the moderators chance to do so (bait really, but that's neither here nor there). Because he didn't take the bait, and because he made such a show of being gracious to Kerry he's hamstrung his own campaign attack dogs to some extent. He can't now go and blast Kerry (Or allow Cheney to do so for him) because now he's on the record as saying Kerry is an honorable man (or the rough equivalent of that). The point is, it'll make Cheney and anyone of the attack dogs from his campaign look well, hypocritical as all hell the very next time they start trying to chew on Kerry's character. They will be called on it. And I bet Rove is VERY unhappy the question was asked, and Bush gave a real quotable answer to it. It's going to make his job quite a bit harder as he specializes in that sort of strategy.
Finally, referring to terrorist organizations as "folks", while a Texan colloqualism did not help Bush. At all. It made him at once seem unaware of how large the issue is and dismissive of it at the same time. Since it IS the central theme of his campaign, it didn't help him. I'd be willing to bet real dollars you will never, ever, hear him refer to them that way again. If it comes up again they will be described as Gangs, or Groups, or something. But not folks. That was a faux pas you can probably expect to see on a t-shirt or commercial tomorrow.
So, all in all, neither candidate fumbled that much, neither scored any kind of a clear win, but Kerry came off better overall and most importantly.. critically really in my view.. looked like a President of the United States of America.
And THAT, was the win for him.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
Whenever I see Bush interviewed on tv, his answers are always the same 3 or 4 tight little paragraphs pre-fed, that he repeats almost verbatim, regardless of what the question was. Its obvious they were worked out with his advisers.
But in a 90 minute debate...dude straight up ran out of material. Even Karl Rove can't feed him enough scripted one-liners to keep him looking intelligent for that long. Outside of his pre-fabricated "town hall" meetings and scripted appearances, he just couldnt keep up.
Iraq was Kerry's most sensitive issue. and bush's biggest asset. Reduced to those one-liners that the TV news resorts to in lieu of real coverage, Bush has looked more convincing thus far. Bush's lines were quick and easy to understand, Kerry's thoughts were more drawn out and didn't carry over in ten second bites. But in a real debate, you could see who was more on top of it. Bush just started to sound like a broken record player.
If people become more confident with kerry on Iraq, he's in good shape. he'll just cruise through the next two debates, where Bush doesnt have a leg to stand on, even with spin. This race isn't over yet.
