“Tonight” in the U.S. (meaning tomorrow morning in Taipei), John Kerry will square off against George W. Bush. Does anyone know where to get a transcript or a video of the event?
[quote]CORAL GABLES, Fla. (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) and Democratic rival John Kerry (news - web sites) square off in a crucial debate on Thursday that will give voters their first chance to size up the two White House candidates side by side.
“There are real differences that separate us in this election and we’re going to get an opportunity to talk about them,” the Massachusetts senator said.
Dan Bartlett, White House communications director, said Bush’s debate preparations were “long and steady instead of a crash course.” Bush, he said, “knows his positions. You don’t have to memorize something you believe in.”
Bush is expected to hammer Kerry for what he says is the senator’s vacillation on the war.
“The question is which John Kerry will show up,” Bartlett said.
The candidates also have starkly different styles, with Bush usually sticking to a simple message often lifted from his stump speech and Kerry wandering more freely, although often into a verbal dead-end. [/quote]
Both candidates made their points. No major stumbles by any candidate etc. I think it will benefit Bush, because most people think of Kerry as a master debater.
Kerry clearly won the debate. He looked confident, decisive, and got his message out. Bush looked uncomfortable and sounded lost as he kept replaying the same old tired lines over and over again.
But, the million NT dollar question is: How will this affect the election?
kerry scored more points, mainly because his supporters were starting to panic. bush did ok, no major gaffes but could have done better. people don’t expect much from bush so that, in and of itself, is a victory.
Just finished watching (CNN) and listening (via internet stream).
My call -
Kerry…he looked mah-ve-lous. Lot of style…not much substance. He waffled and tried to connect dis-jointed taslking points. But he DID look good and was a polished speaqker. As usual his wife looked stoned out.
President G.W. Bush…he looked over-eager and not too polished. His demeanor was one of reactive rather than pro-active. However, he did have the facts and the substance every time. He effectively trumped every accusation of Kerrys. Laura and the daughters were charming as ever.
My call - Very close. This one is a “call 'em”.
If you’re a Kerry fan, you can easily justify a Kerry win.
If President G.W. Bush was your choice going in…He did well enough to carry this one in your opinion. He had the facts.
I look forward to the next one.
p.s. - a strong case is being made that Kerry was just a bit too ready with his answers. A possible leak of the questions may have ocurred.
I think he had substance and made his points quite well. Speaking about how much money and lives have been lost, how the USA has been responsible for over 90% of all costs in Iraq, how the USA got distracted from catching the real culprit of 9/11, how we alienated our allies, how we rushed into this war, etc.
It’s called being prepared. Just because Bush seemed to be his usual confused self doesn’t mean that Kerry cheated in any way. (Remember, it is Bush who has the proven record of lying and cheating which is how he got into the White House in the first place).
I will be more interested in the economic debate. The situation in Iraq will leave few real choices for whoever wins in November. The die was cast when the start of the occupation was fucked up when free markets was the focus instead of security. Basically the candidates seem to accept this though they can’t say it. So instead they say ‘he’s a pussy and a flip-flop and a bull shitter and doesn’t have a clue’, and then both respond with ‘but he’s worse’. Waste of time. I think there will be some real differences in the economic debate
[quote=“kentsuarez”]CNN QuickVote on Debate #1 - 78% felt Kerry won
'Nuf said.[/quote]
lol. look at democracticunderground.com. every time any website has a pool, they unleash all their rabid leftist members to skew the poll in their favor. anyone who thinks a random internet poll means anything knows very little about how the internet works.
[quote=“Flipper”][quote=“kentsuarez”]CNN QuickVote on Debate #1 - 78% felt Kerry won
'Nuf said.[/quote]
lol. look at democracticunderground.com. every time any website has a pool, they unleash all their rabid leftist members to skew the poll in their favor. anyone who thinks a random internet poll means anything knows very little about how the internet works. [/quote]
Jeez… Were we watching the same debate? I saw the one where Kerry clearly won.
Not sure if it’s enough to make a difference on election day though…
Given the format of the debate, it is understandable why many questions need to be general. However, I would have liked to have seen a couple of questions that challenged the candidates on their understanding of specific areas of legislation related to national security.
For example, a New York federal district court judge struck down a section of the Patriot Act on Wednesday that allows the FBI to use national security letters to obtain customer records from ISPs. This decision provided a great opportunity to ask the candidates a question concerning the balance between privacy rights and national security, and to let us know whether either of these guys has a clue about this controversial law.
Nope. All we got was:
Kerry: “I will do better.”
Bush: “People know where I stand.”
I think anyone of moderate intelligence with a basic understanding of the current state of world affairs could have given the answers I heard today. And, Lehrer seemed so proud of the fact that he came up with these questions all by himself. Disappointing.
Bush looked like he was hearing a lot of what was being said for the first time and just didn’t know how to handle it. Maybe his handlers should take the training wheels of his presidential bicycle before it’s too late – or send the real brains behind the operation to handle the last two debates and just let Bush go AWOL.
Is that the gnashing of teeth I hear? Sounds pretty ugly.
I would also say that Kerry clearly won the debate. Just watching the body language, I could see Bush flinch everytime Kerry brought up one of his failed ventures as president. Every time he blinked and stumbled or shook his head, he showed that he was trying to come up with something that he didn’t really have. It was an interesting look at just how unprepared Bush is to handle another 4 years, not as if he was really groomed to handle the first 4…
And what’s with this vast left-wing conspiracy bullshit. Spare me. Bush clearly lost the debate. How much bearing this has on the election, I don’t know, but there is no doubt in my mind that if I had to choose one of them to represent me to negotiate with another country, my choice certainly wouldn’t be the incumbent Mr. B.
Bush lost the “debate” part of the debate. I figured he would have. Bush has never been a good improptu speaker. Nothing new there. Will that hurt in terms of votes? … probably not. In the end, we learned nothing new about “the facts” or “the positions” of the candidates.
But this is interesting. Very interesting. If you look at all the press on the first debate, it is almost all “Bush lost” … NOT “Kerry won”. Some deviations, but for the most part, that is the slant.
This represents the theme of the entire election season: “Vote for Kerry because Bush is a looser” … NOT “Vote for Kerry because Kerry is a winner.”
The reflex is to immediatelyl think that “Bush lost”, because it is even hard for Democrats to think of Kerry as “a winner”. People just don’t think of “winning” and “victory” and “strength” when seeing John Kerry.
Kerry did smack Bush around in that debate. No knockout punch, but Bush got pretty defensive a number of times. Bush also looked quite uncomfortable, and the broken record thing of repeating the same two or three criticisms of Kerry for every single question got annoying by halfway through, but I can see why he did it. Be interesting to see how they go in the Town Hall style one. I’d imagine that’d be more Bush’s style.
