DEM CHALLENGER STANDS TALL BUT STILL COMES UP SHORT

New York Post ^ | 10/01/04 | ANDREA PEYSER

[kattracks]

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Sometimes, you can score points off a big guy just by making him trip over his own feet. Or his tongue.

Last night, John Kerry, the physically imposing, formerly pro-war senator who's running for president as a born-again dove, walked into the debate with the cockiness of a school dork who'd completed every lick of his homework.

He was prepared. Still, the littler guy knocked him down a peg or two.

Early in the debate, Kerry turned his stern visage on President Bush and declared that the war with Iraq was wrong.

"Iraq was not even close to being the center of the war on terror until the president invaded it," he boomed. Hard to argue with, right?

Well, replied Bush, "he voted to authorize the use of force" against Iraq.

[snip]

Kerry did rather well, considering that, earlier in the day, I imagine he was ready to stick his finger in a light socket. On a day in which he was to prove to America he was presidential, the debate hall here was abuzz with news of how Kerry & Co. suffered a meltdown — over lights.

A Kerry adviser threw an all-out hissy fit, vowing to rip out the colored lights that warn the candidates — as well as the rest of America — when each debater was about to run out of time. It seems the verbose Kerry didn't want everyone to know when he's prattled on too long.

This after Bush spent a perfect day being photographed hugging hurricane survivors. Kerry, meanwhile, was holed up in his hotel room — at one point enjoying an in-room manicure.

Kerry's day could only improve from there.

[RinaseaofDs]

I wondered who won last night too.

Then I gave myself a test:

Based on what I saw last night, what is Kerry's plan for triumph in Iraq?

Do you remember him laying out a plan that resonated?

I say that unless and until he puts forth a plan that the average voter thinks he can actually pull off for both Iraq and the economy, Kerry loses. Probably loses big.

[Utah Girl]

For being a politician, Kerry sure has awful instincts. There he is in Florida, a state that is extremely important, and he stays in his room and gets a manicure? He blew it by not going out and talking to people who survived the hurricanes.