The Debate

Well, it was definitely a debate.

Impressions from tonight are easy. Conclusions are not.

First of all, Kerry looked better simply by showing up and not stumbling over himself. He should get a bounce simply because he was up there trying to look Presidential. To some degree, he succeeded.

Bush got thrown off by Kerry a lot more than he ever did by Gore. I think the level of personal animus between these two was evident for much of the debate -- these two guys really dislike one another. Bush bristled a lot more early before settling down nicely.

Kerry wears badly on people during the course of the debate -- there's only so much attacking you can do during a debate before people start looking for solutions rather than more criticism. He's strong on his theme, but he's still an annoying guy. A lot of lecturing early on, followed by some pretty good, realxed lines, and then a drop off at the end.

Kerry had a good response on the $87 billion line, except he didn't respond to the actual issue of his vote. Bush should have followed up on it. At the same time, am I the only one who found it surreal to watch Kerry arguing for unilateral talks with North Korea while Bush is arguing for multi-lateral discussions?

Bush has a smirk. So does Kerry. A draw there, except that we've had four years to get used to Bush's smirk. Kerry's is a little weird -- it reminds me of the tight smile you get from a boss who's trying to fake a smile for a client (not that I've ever seen anything likke that from any of my bosses).

The debate was strong on policy differences, but it missed a lot of substance. I blame Lehrer a little bit for that -- I thought some of the questions were silly and stuck on personal issues.

Darfur -- sadly, no one will care about it. And both guys have the same reaction, and they're both wrong. Bush should have said we should be doing more, and waiting around for the U.N. to start taking action, as Kerry would like to have done on Iraq and in other places, leads to a hell of a lot of death.

North Korea... I keep returning to this because it was the most substantive part of the debate. And they still missed the main point -- I mean, why did we go with Clinton's idiotic pact in 1994?
And finally, Iraq. We had a pretty clear demonstration that these guys have differing views on the issue. I still don't know what Kerry will do differently, except talk to people at a summit. I'm not sure what that will do, but who am I to look for substance at this point?

Bottom line, Kerry probably helped himself tonight. Bush missed a chance to land a knockout blow early. But Kerry missed a chance to grab the upper ground -- perhaps it's just his weakness as a candidate. Kerry did look like a President tonight. But he didn't blow anyone away. I think kerry probably solidified his base. But I don't know if folks will change their mind too much at this point.