There’s no question that John Kerry’s a much better debater than the President, and that he did much better in tonight’s debate. The President was over-prepared, sticking to his talking points instead of taking Kerry down on his many lies, distortions, and sheer flights of fancy.
But the larger question is whether the undecideds who watched were looking for a captain for the school debate team or for a leader of the free world. On that score, it seems to me that when the dust settles in the next few days most of them are not going to feel any more comfortable with Kerry than they were yesterday. His plans for Iraq are impossibly vague and fanciful, his position on North Korea is obviously wrong, and his relationships with world leaders, if he has any, aren’t going to reap him the kind of bonanza that he got from marrying a pair of rich heiresses.
But we’ll see. The snap polls are telling one message pretty clearly: Kerry won the debate, but he didn’t move ahead in the polls. ABC in particular showed him taking the debate by ten points while remaining 4 points behind the President, as each candidate gained one point.
ABC now has the President leading 51-47.
How can you call Bush “overprepared,” when he had nothing with which to prepare in the first place?
That’s why he was reduced to repeating his stock phrases, which, while they sound good in a 30 second commercial, look exactly like what’s underneath it all: Bush has been a disaster for America, and it’s time to replace him.
Is that snobbery or an admission that Kerry’s positions are so variable nobody can prepare to discuss them? The President was over-rehearsed on the talking points, and missed many opportunities to point out Kerry’s flights of fancy.
Kerry flew a kamikaze mission, and the President let him off the hook, probably because he’s saving up for debate number three.
By now you should know- even Bush supporters admit it- Bush doesn’t do improvisation.