Saturday, October 16, 2004

3rd Bush-Kerry debate

It appears that most pundits and polls credit Kerry with winning the last debate, and some credit him with a big win. The right wing "media echo chamber" is trying to spin it as a Bush win, or at least a tie, but reality is not cooperating.

I thought that the debate was essentially a tie. I wanted Kerry to attack Bush more, and since he didn’t I was disappointed. However, it appears that Kerry was appealing to certain micro-constituencies, and that the plan worked, given the poll results. He was appealing to women, primarily, and didn’t want to alienate them by being too aggressive.

To me, Bush again came off as unnatural. He seemed to be just trying to act a part, instead of being himself. His attempts at humor seemed forced and lame.

I watched the last two debates with a few 20-something soldiers. I was kind of surprised that they would watch the debates, and surprised that they would hang in there until the end. But they did. They also liked the rougher moments, commenting when a candidate said something pointed. Of the 4 male soldiers, 2 favored Bush, 1 Kerry, and 1 I wasn’t sure about.

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