9/30 Presidential Debate

Great Debates
1

I did a search and didn’t find the topic I’m about to bring up posted anywhere, so I’m posting it here.

Who do you think won the debate last night? I’m not asking who do you think was right or who would make a better President, just who do you think won the debate.

Personally, I think Kerry won. Early in Bush was performing poorly in my opinion. It seemed as though he was going to lose his composure, but he didn’t, so kuddos to him.

Additionally what I thought hamstrung Bush is his harping on Kerry’s ‘flip-flopping’. The reason why this hamstrung Bush is because I thought, over all, that Kerry was pretty unambigious, which takes the wind out of Bush’s sails out of this criticism of Bush’s.

Now I realize that Kerry has changed his mind a lot in the past, and will probably do so in the future; again, I’m only talking about the debate.

I thought that Bush had a few opportunities that he didn’t take. I would have like to hear him talk more about our successful missions without appearing flustered. One thing that was good about Bush is that he seemed more emotionally involved-which also did hurt him.

I thought that Kerry came off as being very well informed and decisive. Whether he sticks to his guns is another question. Additionally I thought he did well when Bush attempted to nail him by pointing out that Kerry initially supported the idea that Iraq was a threat.

In summary, I thought Kerry looked calmer, more collected, and better prepared. I think that Bush seriously needs to work on his skills for the next debate.

So what do you think?

2

Great summary Meatros - I agree.

When Bush is “on,” he comes across as down-home, easy-to-relate to, decisive and plain-spoken. When he is “off,” he comes across as deer-in-the-headlights, simplistically repetitive, and puppet-like in his unwillingness to let go of one or two rehearsed messages when he should react to something that was said. In my opinion, he was off.

His harping on “mixed messages” in the face of Kerry’s clarity during the debate just didn’t ring true.

3

Bush sounded like a scratched record. Or a parrot. “Wrong war! Wrong Time! This is a great diversion! Kuraaaawk!” Kerry explained several times his reasoning on the Iraq War. Bush’s repeated replies reminded me of a conversation with a ten-year-old:

Kerry: Number One: The war in Iraq was a mistake. Number Two…

Bush: Tee hee! He said “Number twos!”

Bush’s posture may have been intended to show him as “folksy”, but I think it made him look ill at ease. While Bush was able to get his opinions across on occasion, it seemed to me that often instead of coming back witha successful argument he fell back on “I’m just right!”

I thought Kerry was effective when he pointed out that he had a plan to resolve the Iraq situation and offereed a few examples. On the other hand, Bush seemed to be saying “We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.” I think Kerry’s plan of working more closely with the rest of the world is better than our current “go-it-alone” approach. But I thought he didn’t need to keep repeating the “90% of the operation is currently American” thing. I heard him the first time.

Overall, I thought Kerry was better prepared and a better debater. He looked Presidential.

4

I agree with you, I thought Bush’s delivery was bad in this regard. I think he could have relayed the same information in a better fashion and less repetitively. It could have been a good point, but Bush’s delivery washed the effectiveness away. In the next set, Bush has got to work on that sort of thing, IMO.

I think his posture can be effective, if done right. Last night it wasn’t done right and some of Bush’s opinions came off as blank declarations. The problem as I saw it was that Bush would say something that was tantimount to what you said (aka “I’m right!”) and only demonstrate a question or two later (if at all) why he would be right. He seemed disjointed in that regard, which made him appear as though he was very uneasy.

5

It may be that “folksy” has run its course. Detroit-area news stations did the typical reaction-of-the-man-on-the-street thing, and at least one person said “Bush was folksy, but I don’t want folksy. I want somebody who makes me feel safe” (paraphrasing).

Which pretty much parallels my feelings. I don’t want a President I could have a beer with, 'cause I’m never going to have a beer with him. I want a President who’s smarter than me, and who isn’t afraid to show it.

(Of course, that may not be hard to do, I know . . . )

6

[Serious Attempt Not To Let Personal Politics Color My Answer]

I must admit, I didn’t watch the whole thing. When I ran out of things to throw at the television, I went to bed.

I also thought Kerry was the winner. Clear, concise, informed, and decisive. Not parroting the same phrase over and over and over and over ad nauseam.

[/Serious Attempt]

On a more juvenile note, there was a moment when Bush used the phrase “rue the day”. Whenever I hear that phrase, I immediately flash back to the line from Real Genius: “Rue the day? Who talks like that?”

It was worth a giggle or two to me. The only part of the debate that was. sigh

7

I definitely thought Kerry won. Bush seemed underprepared and almost startled by some of the issues he had to respond to. How could he not have been expecting the questions that came at him, and not be any more prepared to respond with anything more intellingent than, “Uhh …” after Kerry’s responses? Bush did well when he had the opportunity to respond first, but I thought he was extremely weak in his rebuttals. I also thought that while both were repetitive, Bush overused many of his arguments. I didn’t need to hear about “10 million people registering to vote in Afghanistan” twice within five minutes or so. And sometimes I literally could not understand what he was trying to say, either because he just couldn’t seem to spit it out (sending mexed missages?) or because his thoughts weren’t well organized.

8

Is this a poll as to who we thought won? I thought Kerry won, definitely, and both style and substance.

I know substance is basically irrelevant; no one cares that Bush’s grasp of details on forgeign policy is so painfully thin. I knew Kerry would be a lot more informed and articulate, which he was.

What I didn’t expect is that Kerry would come across so well: poised, passionate, decisive.

What Kerry brings to the table is certainly not folksiness.

It’s competence.

He already had my vote. But now I’ve gone from a somewhat luke-warm Kerry support (the proverbial “more anti-Bush”) to solid and enthusiastic Kerry supporter. I think that will be one significant benefit to Kerry from the debate that has been ignored by pundits: I’m betting a lot of people who were reluctant Kerry supporters are going to feel a lot better about supporting him. This can only help influence the undecideds to largely swing Kerry’s way. I’ve been long convinced anyway that most of the undecideds don’t want to vote for Bush, but aren’t sure yet about Kerry. Kerry’s success in the debate will help a lot.

Bush on the other hand did nothing to persuade those not already persuaded.

In all, a win for Kerry.
:smiley:

9

I can’t see how anyone could judge Bush’s performance in that debate as anything other than a flop. Some lowlights: The namedropping. The cynical inclusion of the story about the fallen soldier that was so obviously dropped in to tug at the heartstrings, but really just fell flat. And for God’s sake, the whining! Wide-eyed, theatrically outraged “He changes his positions!” Plaintive “It’s hard work.”

I think Kerry’s poll numbers have been lagging because the people haven’t seen him in action. They want to replace this president, and they know he’s vulnerable, but they’re reluctant to give the job to somebody else unless they know he’s got the guts to deliver the necessary blows. Up until now, he’s been slow to do that, but now that the public has seen John Kerry in action, I think they’ll have more confidence in him, and the new buzz will be all about his ninth-inning comeback.

10

On my bulletin board, people are reporting that Bush said “You can’t be a good leader if you send Mexicans”, catching himself before he finished the word “Mexicans.” True?

11

Not that I remember. I’m trying to think of what he actually said though, it was something about you can’t be a good leader if your indecisive or possibly if you think that the war is a mistake. Or something to that effect.

12

There was some analogy about invading Mexico, at one point. Must find transcript …

13

Whatever it started out as, it turned into “mexed messages.”

14

I think the exact quote was, “You can lead if you send mexed miss–mixed messages,” which got me my biggest laugh from the whole debate.

Daniel

15

Oh yeah: Kerry said that attacking Iraq in response to 9/11 was like invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor, I believe; it was a quote from a general or someone.

Daniel

16

I’d be curious to hear from Bush supporters who thought Kerry “won” and vice versa. I think Bush was the clear winner but admit to supporting Bush as the lesser of two evils.

Since this wasn’t a true debate, I can only assess the winner based on whether the general thesis that each candidate proposed was adequately described and defended. I also judged them on addressing what are considered the major weakness of their respective campaigns. I’m just gonna rattle off points as I think of them.

Bush’s theme was clear: Kerry is irresolute, inconsistent, and those are particularly dangerous qualities in the current geopolitical climate.

Kerry’s theme was that Bush made a colossal mistake in the past, that he would have done differently and will do differently in the future.

In defending these themes I think Bush succeeded and Kerry failed. Kerry did nothing to counter Bush’s claims that Kerry is inconsistent. Kerry’s own rhetorical style (“I think”, “I believe”, “I’ll try,” “Nothing but respect,” “almost didn’t”) reinforced this image. Kerry made the point of consistency not being a positive trait if that means you’re consistently moving in the wrong direction. Bush countered by highlighting the difference between changing tactics and changing core beliefs. Kerry never adequately explained his inconsistent statements about
Saddam and the war.

Bush made good points when calling Kerry to task on how belittling the current Iraqi government and calling the coaltion one of the “coerced and the bribed,” was hardly in the service of building a coalition and respecting one’s allies. It might have been rhetoric, but I think it worked.
I thought Bush won on North Korea but missed a major opportunity in not pointing out the inconsistency between Kerry’s demands for multilateralism in Iraq but unilateralism in NK.

Bush nailed Kerry on the “pass the global test” comment.

While Bush often fell back on “It’s hard work” as a defense, I thought this served to make Kerry look naive regarding the realities of long term initiatives.

Kerry made a good point that it’s not how much money you spend, but whether or not you achieve your objectives.

I don’t think Kerry expressed himself more clearly; I think he cited more facts. But he never led those facts back to his central point except in the case of nuclear proliferation. Kerry dominated here.

Kerry also made a good point regarding “outsourcing” the hunt for bin Laden.

Kerry’s use of Clinton’s thumb-fist was blatantly derivative and served to show that this is not a man whose ideas come from within. He presents his ideas so weakly. Don’t say “I believe the children are our future.” Say “The children are our future.” The former gives the audience the chance to ask, “Do I believe this?”

Bush came off as someone who understands that you can’t have everything. Life is hard but worth living. Kerry came off as promising everything.

17

KidCharlemagne - about the only thing I agree with you on is that I would love to hear from “on the fencers” who were swayed one way or the other, or GOP’ers who thought Kerry won or Dem’s who thought Bush won.

Beyond that - our POV’s couldn’t be more different about who won and where they scored points. But this isn’t the place and I know I can’t change your mind, so don’t want to beat my head against a wall…

18

You certainly wrong here. I’m listening with an open mind if you’ll speak.

19

I respect that mindset - lemme think about it and see what I come up with. I would suspect that moving this thread much past “who won” should put it into Great Debates…

Maybe we can head over there.

My basic points are as follows:

Substance - both were basically hitting the same points they have been. I thought Kerry made effective use of repetition to clarify his approach to Iraq and debunk Bush’s flip flop smear. I thought Bush used repetition ineffectively and came across like a puppet who couldn’t think on his feet. YMMV.

A key difference was NKorea - Kerry did a great job stating that bilateral talks can definitely co-exist with multi-lateral talks and that that was what China and other nations wanted and Bush had walked away from that.

Bush’s constant repetition of “Kerry can’t say wrong war wrong time…” just comes across as a small-minded, immature response to me. Bush has to acknowledge that his decision to go to war in the first place was challenged substantively and that subsequent revelations about lack of WMDs, lack of Saddam/Osama links and other problems have seriously undermined Bush’s credibility and he needs to build compelling fact-based arguments if he wants us to follow him - he has lost the automatic trust he had right after 9/11. The fact that he doesn’t seem to get that is disturbing and makes him appear that much more out of touch - just saying “shhhh, not in front of the children” seems small-minded, inappropriate, condescending and disrespectful.

There is tons more, but that’s top of mind. We should head over to GD…

20

Did it seem to you, at times, like a discussion and not a debate? There were several places where one or both candidates would go off on a few of their talking points and almost totally ignore what the other fellow had said.

I didn’t think he made this as clear a point as he could have, and it seemed (to someone who doesn’t particularly relish either candidate) as though Bush was hoping Kerry would try to save face on more than a few items labeled inconsistencies last night (flip-flops elsewhere). Bush’s theme was indeed quite clear. I don’t think he did a satisfactory job of specifically defending it (“that’s not something a commander in chief does” strikes me as something Bush said more than a few times, but what was missing from that, and would I think have seriously helped Bush and harmed Kerry, was Bush pointing out the error behind what Kerry said. Plus for my money, Kerry wasn’t trying to be commander in chief for much of his so-called flip-flops. There’s only one POTUS.)

I think for the most part Kerry stayed away from most of those topics and Bush did the same except to refer to them, usually vaguely.

I thought that might be an effort by Kerry to seem less heavy-handed, but I’ll freely admit that’s opinion.

I thought they both lost. I’m frankly more nervous about NK than I am about much of the Middle East and Bush seems both resigned to let other countries worry about it and not nearly concerned enough - had he talked about plans his administration had considered (and I might have missed him doing so), I think that would have inspired more confidence in me. Kerry, though he seemed a bit naive regarding his ability as someone who wouldn’t knowingly weaken alliances and NK, also seemed more resolute in this area.

I actually thought he could have made it much better; if you’re doing everything possible, every individual who can shoot a gun is in your military. Taxes are going to be insane. I think he might have done better emphasizing that it isn’t solely money but appropriate measures, well-considered, that are needed.

In more than one case I thought Kerry was more reciting statistics than debating. I think he might have done better by picking one or two important figures and explaining why they were important and what his plan entailed WRT them.

He did dominate the nuclear proliferation talk, I think.

Quite frankly, Bush came off to me as saying “don’t believe what this guy tells you, everything’s alright, things are just gonna be rocky.” Kerry was probably coached to appear more resolute and confident when he talked about this topic, and he sure came off that way. Bush almost looked worried.