Thursday, September 30, 2004

Debate number one is winding up, and frankly it looks like a wash to me. Bush stumbled quite a bit, but I don't believe anyone who may be contemplating voting for Bush will hold it against him; the formal rules of debating don't seem to apply here. By contrast, his concluding statement was pretty polished and came off well.
I suspect the RNC and sundry right-wing 527s will leap on Kerry for saying he will shut down the the program to build nuclear bunker-busting weapons, and I find myself wondering how that will play with uncomitted voters. Kerry did manage to get in a succinct sound-bite about how he felt Saddam was a threat, that the president needed the resolution so that he would force Saddam to cooperate, but we needed to go through the inspection process and work with the UN, etc. Nevertheless, I don't think it will be enough.