[Coop]

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. Except I think we may see a tightening in the polls. But last night was a draw in my book. President Bush certainly won re: substance, throwing Kerry's words back in his face several times. But Kerry probably won in style points, and did get Dubya's goat at least once. But with feedback apparently settling near 50/50 as to who won - or even slightly in Kerry's favor - I can't see that Kerry did much for his campaign.

However, I will say that Kerry was not knocked out of the race, as could have happened. He lived to fight another day, although he's nonetheless eating Dubya's dust.

:-) But the Swifties are still lurking out there...

[r9etb]

I don't think any of the debates will knock either candidate out of the race. For this one, Kerry was very well prepared, and he spoke well -- and yet he still only came away with a draw.

Why? Because what he said was obviously political rhetoric -- even my kids could tell that. My wife (who is apolitical, but tends Democrat) began heckling him -- she had him spotted as a poser. Which is to say, Kerry didn't win the folks he needed to win.

I think in the long run this debate probably hurt Kerry a lot more than it helped him. Now he's had a national audience for his foreign policy stuff, and Bush has got 30 days to run ads about what he said.