I'm calling the town-hall style debate a win for Kerry. But not a clear win, not a clear win at all. I don't expect the polls to shift much because of this one; if anything, I would attribute a continuing climb to Kerry's outstanding first-debate performance shifting more voters as it percolates through the national consciousness.
The start was commandingly Kerry's. The President was agitated and even belligerent, raising his voice and tensing up; at one point he verbally tussled with the moderator. Little hint to would-be debaters: don't tick off the ref. (It didn't seem to help Kerry much; several times later in the debate, Kerry asked for a pair of thirty-second extensions to rebut some remark of Bush's, and, as in the first debate, did so genteelly enough that the moderator rolled right on.) Kerry was calm and forceful.
The format was supposed to play to the President's style, allowing him to connect with the audience, be gestural and energetic, and make a better impression than he did at the last debate. I'd say he did, though Kerry was certainly no slouch at staying engaged and dynamic. The President tried a couple of laugh lines, which fell wincingly flat, though the audience did finally start chuckling near the end.
The President once again avoided any particularly embarassing malapropisms, and Kerry tended toward long-windedness, especially near the end. Kerry had an interesting way of tying together responses to more than one question in a single answer. A while back I wrote an NFZ article about the elegance of Kerry's platform, in which well-thought-out proposals addressed more than one issue and/or had the support of more than one idea. This spoke to that, I think, and it portrays, in a subtle way, the depth and intelligence of Kerry's positions on the issues. I'm not sure how widely that would come across, though, so it's hard to count a point for Kerry on that.
A commentator or two has noted that, on the environmental question, Kerry should have completely trashed the President; the President had a ready list of environmental actions his administration has undertaken, while Kerry wandered a bit. He did call the Clear Skies act "Orwellian" in its title, which is frankly true; the same could go for the Healthy Forests Initiative. The administration's environmental record is atrocious; Kerry could have hit so much harder on this one.
On the mishmash of issues which was domestic policy, it was hard to get a clear dialogue going. Bush kept up a policy of stretching truths so far that lies shake their hand on the way by. Some of the distortions which Bush was throwing around include the claim that 900,000 small business owners would have their taxes increased under the Kerry plan; not true, says factcheck.org. He says that Kerry's health plan is government-sponsored health care, which is completely untrue: Kerry would put the government in the business of paying for catastrophic health care costs (thus moderating risk and lowering premiums for almost all health insurance buyers), but decisions on care would still be entirely in the hands of doctors and patients. Kerry hit back on some of these, but they muddied the waters plenty. The only analogous statement I can find from Kerry is a claim, which I previously believed, that General Eric Shinseki was fired for saying that Bush would need 200,000 troops, thousands more than were sent to Iraq, for satisfactory postwar operations. Factcheck and others point out that he didn't even retire particularly early, so I'd say this one's not true either and hope it stops being repeated. But it's hardly on the same scale as the distortions of Kerry's opponent.
Several of the final questions dealt with issues of life. I should say that I am a pro-life Democrat; I have come to the conclusion that stem-cell research is a net gain for human life, but I'm not ethically rock-solid on the question and I flat-out desire pro-life legislation, so I disagree with Kerry on some of these points. This is a strong issue for many people, and concluding the debate with questions related to these issues leaves a sour taste in my mouth. On the other hand, both candidates took positions palatable to their bases (if Bush's was, once again, more simplistic and sound-bite-suitable), so it's hard to call how this one will play.
Overall, a close call, like the VP debate last Tuesday. Both camps are spinning it as an out-of-the-park victory, unlike last week when Kerry's people were calling it a win and Bush's were worried. In this case, though, I'll call the difference close but big enough to assign a win to Kerry.
Posted by William at October 8, 2004 09:33 PM