Oct. 8 - Presidential Debate

Allah is hosting recaps with links to several blogs.

I thought President Bush was first rate. It's hard for me to trust my feelings in grading Kerry. To me, it seemed obvious that he wasn't really answering most of the questions directly. His style is always to divert from the point, much like Clinton. If undecideds pick that up - it's a big negative. I'm not prepared to assume that they will.

On style, I tip it to Bush. Not nearly as stiff as Kerry, the "wood" comment was a great little tactic to break the tension and, hopefully, make undecideds feel more comfortable with him. At the same time, I wonder if others get annoyed at Kerry constantly invoking names of Republicans or former administration officials to support his points. I kept feeling like, answer the question, dope, I don't care what someone else thought, what do "you" think? But my bias is obvious - so who's to say.

Kerry did fine, but only "fine." He didn't drive his points home the way he did in the first debate IMO. Or if he did, they were redundant now and less effective. And I think thebar was higher for him tonight. I'm really starting to think that Kerry simply cannot seriously connect with voters in any significant way. Consequently, I see the path to a win for Bush having a lot to do with his reassuring voters that they should give him another four years. In my opinion, he accomplished that tonight. That makes it a win for Bush in the big picture. On a pure debate level, I saw it for pretty much a draw.

Final points: Kerry simply cannot or will not get away from painting himself as a raving internationalist. I don't see that as a plus in November. Bush connected when he got up after Kerry and said, "I'm still trying to figure that answer out."