Debate No. 1

The Sept. 30 debate between Kerry and Bush seemed to be a competition between 2 men who wanted to say as little as possible about their own plans, while at the same time attacking each other's. It was a night of "vote for me because I'm not the other guy". Things that annoyed me were: Jim Lehrer's referring to himself as "Jim Lehrah", and he and Bush referring to terror as "terrah". Tera's a friend of mine, stop talking about her; Jim Lehrer's creepy black contact lenses that make him look like a b-movie alien; Lehrer's questions, many of which seemed to come directly from Kerry's brain; Both candidates not answering the questions directly, but going off on tangents so they could get out their talking points; Bush's insistence on hammering home (several times in the first half hour) that stupid phrase that went something like, "He (Kerry) said wrong war wrong method wrong time -- does that sound like a man that's fit to lead?"; Bush's constant harping that we should vote for him because the war needs "a consistent leader"; Kerry's smug writing things down as Bush was talking; Bush wanting to respond for 30 seconds to seemingly everything that Kerry said; Bush's angry bluster; Kerry's ripping of Bush's handling of the Iraq war while not detailing what he would do differently.

As you know, Bush killed Gore in the 2000 debates by seeming likable, confident, and shooting Gore's wheels off with nonsense phrases like "Fuzzy math." Gore's precise slimy torrent of lies couldn't compete with that. I mean, when Gore would come up with a precise out-of-nowhere statistic that is designed to mislead people, and Bush would call it "fuzzy math", Bush would win every time. It was genius. Gore had killed Quayle, Jack Kemp, Bill Bradley, others -- but Bush was his kryptonite.

The Dems have learned and prepared in the 4 years since. They know that this election is about how much we hate Bush, and are appealing to vague negative feelings rather than all-out fact attacks. Plus, Kerry is eloquent, and makes Bush looks like a blathering idiot most of the time. Kerry may win this after all, if he can make us hate Bush enough.

It will be interesting to see the other 2 debates, especially the economics one.

Still don't know who I'm going to vote for...I'm a dreaded undecided voter. Pander to me.