It was very interesting to simply listen to these two men speak and not have any visual cues. The President came across as energetic, straightforward, slyly humorous, and surprisingly youthful. Senator Kerry has real gravitas as a speaker and a rather old-fashioned but effective oratorical style.
Simply listening, I thought that W scored a number of points for being very open and down-to-earth. When he told the story about meeting Laura or spoke of his faith, the depth of emotion was very evident in his voice. He also got what seemed to be far and away the biggest laughs of the night on his first few comments about the "strong women" in his life. Kerry never seemed to match that "openness" at any point and in fact seemed to fumble his attempt to joke about "marrying up."
Neither of them came across as at a loss for words at any point, though Kerry did seem to "um" his way into his answer about faith. They hammered away at talking points at many opportunities, which is INCREDIBLY boring when you forced to sit through them without any visuals to distract or enhance.
I call it a clean draw and thought that the President acquitted himself very well against someone who is supposed to be one of the best debaters in American politics.
Welcome Newbie--Bush cleaned his clock!!!!
I listened mostly also (headphones while I cleaned house, hubby had baseball playing) and came to many of your same conclusions: Bush sounded energetic and down to earth; Kerry the statistic-spewing robot. I didn't like that Bush appeared to be often on the defense, though he played the position well.