It was really hard to be objective about this particular debate, because I know enough about the issues—and John Kerry— to find Kerry's laundry lists of candy and gum he'll be giving us all rather boring and laughable. By the end of the evening I was wondering if I could look up the phrase "stereotypical politician" in a dictionary, and find Kerry's picture there. Those were his better moments: I was also reminded of snake oil pitch men, and used car salesmen.

After watching the tape I'd made of the debate I poked my head into my husband's office and enquired, "did you know that when Kerry gets elected it'll start raining hundred dollar bills?"

"I got that idea," he replied.

"I mean, we'll have so much extra money and government benefits, it'll get downright annoying."

The clincher, though, was the sequence wherein our guys made their closing statements. Bush came up with an image—a painting of a sunrise over a hill in Texas—that evoked two different Reaganesque phrases: "morning in America," and "the shining city on a hill" that Reagan thought America was and could be. I thought it was important for Bush to do something to show that underneath the surface, where he discusses hard realities and Kerry makes endless promises, there is a level on which he is the optimist and Kerry, the pessimist.

This race hinges on how the undecided voters break: some analysts claim they'll break for the challenger, and some, for the incumbent.

I thought Bush did well. I still wish he were fluent in English—but you can't have everything. He's a good man, and he's doing a lot to keep this country safe. I'm convinced he'll do a better job than Kerry on that score, and that he'll be a better facilitator for economic growth as well.

I thought he won the second presidential debate, though the Fox panelists—tough guys, all—scored that one as a tie. This time I thought perhaps it might be a draw, but the Fox guys gave this one to Bush.

It doesn't matter what we think, though. It matter what people in New Mexico and Ohio think.

Posted by: Attila at 11:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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