Kevin's Weblog

I was fairly impressed with Kerry’s improvement in delivery in the first debate, but in the end, I’m not sure that it’s enough. His position on Iraq is a tough one and it’s hard to sell. I mean, “how do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?” His Pottery Barn analogy was just a little bizarre, and I think can only be explained by some staffer saying something like: you have to capture the Soccer Moms (oops... according to NPR it’s now Security Moms) vote — toss in something about Pottery Barn or something. Beyond its bizarreness, I will be amazed if it doesn’t get turned around on him: “Kerry says the government broke it, and now he wants your son to buy it.”

Other than that, Bush made a lot more gaffes, although Kerry let him get away with virtually all of them. Some examples:

In response to a question about the importance of Bin Laden vs. Iraq, he slipped and said, “Of course I know that Saddam Hussein is the most important... I mean that Osama bin Laden is the most important...”

Bush would say to troops, “I will bring you home as soon as the mission is done,” apparently forgetting about the mission accomplished stunt. (Kerry made a quick reference to this, but only an hour later. He should have jumped on it immediately.)

Bush looks like quite a bit of a hypocrite going on about the International Criminal Court after the events at Abu Ghraib.

Bush several times insisted on a 1-minute follow-on round and then appeared to have nothing planned to say.

One point of criticism for both candidates is that apparently they both feel that Iran is more important than what’s happening in Darfur, since they both chose to spend the first 30 seconds talking about that country instead of answering the question that was asked.

Sadly, my feeling here, though, is that although Kerry really topped Bush in terms of actually addressing issues that were put forward, unless his campaign can really work the spin engine, the conventional wisdom is going to be that Bush won it because he looked at the camera more and because he appears to have stronger convictions (i.e. is incapable of admitting to any mistake).