Another vanity thread.
I wish people would put "vanity" in their titles.
Anyways, I will still vote for President Bush. I didn't need a debate to convince me otherwise.
What's with the rampant Tokyo Rose sewage flowing around the Freep tonight?
Kerry didn't win anything.
Sticking to a few points is good strategy. Too bad sKerry didn't have a strategy.
I think that Kerry scored a few points by looking presidential. But, his positions are all over the place and contradictory of each other and past positions. Bush is NOT slick and polished--but he is an honest man who sticks by his principles. People are not going to trade a good man in for a clunker.
In a few days, as people analyze Kerry's comments more and more people will believe that Bush won the debates. Remember in 2000, everyone thought that Gore had won right after?
Zencycler,
I'm a hard right conservative who wants badly for W to win, and I seem to have saw the same thing you did tonite. Maybe my expectations were too high. But W almost had the look that a close loved one just passed away, and he couldn't stay focused. His sputtering in speech, and I guess thought, throughout made me cringe several times.
At least he was able to continually nail Kerry for what Kerry is, full of it.
I sit tonite aghast at the thought that one of America's most rabid liberals could BS his way into the White House with just a few good 90-minute bursts of manuer.
kbeam
Bush looked like he just couldn't believe someone would stand before a national TV audience and lie like Kerry did. I thought I detected steam coming out of Bush's ears at one point.
You are right, go read the stories on www.washingtonpost.com. Even the snarky Bush-hater Dana Milbank gives the President his due and says he put Kerry on the defensive for much of the evening. The AP story is slightly pro-Bush, which is a miracle for the AP. The soundbite they are all quoting is when President Bush hammered Kerry on the "wrong war, wrong time" stuff and said, "What is he going to say to the allies, 'come join us in this diversion?'" I didn't see that part of the debate but I was LMAO when I read it. That quote has the hand-your-ass-to-you quality that most people really want to see in a debate.
I am a Bush supporter and a Bush/Republican voter.
Kerry did a much better job than Bush tonight.
Kerry was better prepared and more dynamic in his presentation. He stayed on the offensive and Bush missed several opportunites to respond and overall Bush just did not have his "game face" on.
His mumbling responses combined with non-verbal communications were very disappointing to me. Lack of preparation or too much self confidence???
I saw a picture of the two men - Kerry erect behind the podium, Bush slumped over the podium leaning on his elbows, head down.. Not the way to influence people and make a positive impression of dynamic leadership.
If the audience had been allowed to respond during the debate the Kerry people had a lot to respond to - at last their candidate was making a stand and GB simply was not with it. His fault or his advisors for not getting him ready for this initial debate.
Kerry will get several points of "bounce" from this first debate, but there are two more to go. If Bush does not do better in the next two, then it will be a very long election night come 2 Nov.
I could not help but wonder when it was announced that there would be three debates, why Bush had agreed to that. The advantage is to the chalanger.
My humble opinion - go flame mosquitos if you don't like it.
Lamudbug - a Goldwater Republican