Bush also won votes when he said at the end that there would be no draft, an issue Kerry didn't mention. Kerry also tried to sound very hawkish, something that doesn't play well with his base.
so far the consensus on FOX and on NRO seems to be that the president was not on his game, but that there were no big mistakes. The Fox Panel did pretty much agree that the race will tighten now in a way that it wouldn't had the president knocked it out of the park.
" Kerry also tried to sound very hawkish, something that doesn't play well with his base."
Exactly. This is the point Dick Morris has been making the past few days.