Bush Kerry Debate

Well, I watched the debate tonight. Who won? I think its a tie, but only due to Bush's dismal public speaking skills.

Bush's Overall Message: You are safer with me. What I am doing in Iraq makes you safer. Kerry has no consistent position on iraq.

I think bush did a good job of driving in the central message through sheer tongue twisted repetition. Every question came around to one or all of these points.

Kerry's Message: Bush an incompetent liar. I can do better.

Kerry's ability to actually answer the questions that he was asked dilutes his ability to come out of the debate with a memorable message. You try summarizing Kerry's overall messaage in 80 characters or less. When I typed out the bush summary above, it was a no brainer. I had to pause and think for a while to summarize Kerry's overall message. And I just watched the debate. What will you remember tomorrow? point to Bush.

My first impression was that Kerry wanted to trap bush in the "friendly tall man handshake of death" and that bush doesn't want to be seen anywhere near Kerry. minor point to Kerry.

I think Kerry had some inconsistencies in his responses that a more agile debater than bush might have taken advantage of to reinforce his message about Kerry's consistency. Kerry claimed that we didn't have enough allies in iraq, and that we have too many in North Korea. Kerry claimed that we relied too much on American troops in Iraq instead of allies, and that we relied too much on allies instead of American troops in Afghanistan (Tora Bora).

In a rare display of minor debating ability, Bush seemed to partially dismantle Kerry's claim that he can recruit new allies for Iraq. I think this claim will be further dismantled and disected by the press, pundits and surrogates over the next few days. As it should. It seems to be the central point of Kerry's plan for Iraq (assuming that summits are a part of recruiting allies).

Bush missed an opportunity when Kerry talked about not confusing the warrior with the war to bring up Kerry's congressional war crimes testimony. This may be the next swift boat vets ad.

Bush visibly changed on the war widow question. He seems more human and less politician at these moments. (unlike Kerry's fake laugh at the second question.)

Anyway, those are my impressions. I haven't seen any third party analysis of the debate yet. I'll catch up on that tommorrow.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 30th, 2004 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Bush Kerry Debate”

  1. I honestly don't think the fact that you can sum up Bush's entire argument into a few words is a good thing. Perhaps Bush's message will be easier to remember, but I think in general, what people will remember is the fact that the message didn't hold up in the debate. If anything, I think the simplicity of Bush's messages left enough holes that Kerry could point out and dissect. Bush, unfortunately, did not do the same with any of the holes in Kerry's arguments. The problem is, in my opinion, that there are too many holes not only in Bush's rhetoric, but also when looking at the way his administration has functioned in general. There are too many things that the Bush administration either has not explained or can not explain. Also, I think the very fact that Bush is such an inept debater reflects very poorly on his ability to negotiate foreign policy (or, to be honest, any policy.) If Bush can not articulate himself any better, and if he can not muster the brainpower to find flaws in someone else's argument and to attack those flaws, then how the hell can we expect him to have long, difficult discussions with foreign leaders? I felt like there was nothing he said on Sept. 30 that he has not said a million times before. I felt like he neither attacked Kerry on any of the points that Kerry wasn't prepared to be attacked on (because Kerry had already heard the Bush admin's arguments against him so many times before), nor did he defend his administration on any of the fresh points that Kerry brought to light. In general, I feel that the debate went fairly clearly to Kerry, and for good reason. Kerry's arguments, whether due to the fact that they were actually very good arguments or due to the fact that Bush did not bother to point out the flaws in them, were better. He was much more articulate and much more adept at pointing out all of Bush's inadequacies. I think Bush's message did not hold up to Kerry's defense. And foreign policy in general is a difficult, complicated issue that can not be summed up into one clear message. The fact that Bush didn't seem to have a very firm grasp on exactly how complicated foreign policy is did not only make me feel that our country would be in better hands with Kerry, but it made me genuinely afraid of what might happen with four more years of Bush.

    By Kate on October 3rd, 2004 at 1:37 pm

  2. The debate handshake from Foxnews camera-angle from Hannity and Colmes viewed in slow motion is quite interesting. Kerry, appears to really give Bush a crushing handshake, gets right up next to Bush while looking down at him, and then perhaps says "How's the war in Iraq?", and then smiles large. Check it out if you can.

    Tom

    By Tom on October 4th, 2004 at 9:50 pm

  3. "Must... not ... frown"

    Kerry did well as usual. Bush went from scowl to smirk, and tried to cover up his previous performance with obviously preprepared self-deprecating humor. He did a lot of shouting and ignored the people in the audience.

    Why couldn't Bush answer the "mistakes" question??? He seems unable to admit any mistakes ever. The woman asked for three mistakes he's made, and he started ranting about Saddam. Unhinged from reality, and rather arrogant for someone who is begging for our vote.

    Some on the right are celebrating "Hey, our guy didn't act like he had a lobotomy! He controlled his face better than a toddler! Hip Hip Horray"
    Pretty sad. Gotta give this one to the K-man.

    By jim on October 9th, 2004 at 3:01 am

  4. For one thing I am fairly underwelmed by Kerry. But I have a hard time understanding why anyone would trust Bush with anything besides abuse of power. However when trying really hard I also come to the conclusion that a simple lie is just easier to swallow than the complexity of reality. This is why honesty has no long term chance in politics, and appearently in the USA it doesnt even have a short term chance. Pity the world we live in.

    By Lukas on October 10th, 2004 at 10:30 am

  5. One thing that I noticed was that Kerry's standby topic, the one he used when he wanted to avoid a question or to use up time was health care. Bush's standby topic was education.

    I think Bush did poorly addressing the issues of job loss and minimum wage. He mostly avoided them by going to his standby education answer. I think Kerry scored some points here, although I really dislike the idea of a manufacturing jobs tax credit. The last thing we need is another industry specific government subsidy.

    I think Bush did a really good job of answering the question about why health care costs are so high: lack of accountability, lawsuits, and inefficiency. Kerry had a couple good points on the cost side too, namely drug re-importation and more preventive medicine.

    Both candidates left one out. We are simply buying more health care. For example, if you got AIDS 20 years ago, you just died quickly. Now, you can live much longer, but with expensive treatment. There is more health care available to buy and we are eager purchasers.

    The problems with healthcare costs need to be solved my reducing the costs, not simply re-distributing them.

    By Ultracet on October 27th, 2004 at 2:36 am

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