Debate Reaction

I know that the Politics-as-sports metaphor is is wildly overused, but I’m a huge political junkie at this point in my life so tonight almost seemed like a playoff game to me. I was actually fairly excited to see the debate but I had a nervous twitter in my stomach as I hoped against hope that President Bush wouldn’t do anything to screw up (ala Gary Anderson blowing that last minute field goal in the NFC Championship against the Falcons. The Falcons!).
I have to say that I feel a bit let down by Bush’s performance tonight and I have to give Kerry the nod in terms of who “won” this one. In my opinion, Kerry needed to come off as presidential and as non-patrician as possible and I think he did a fairly good job. I think this will end up mattering to the undecideds who decide primarily on image. However, the speechifying that he did was woefully lacking in details (a seeming theme in Kerry’s political career – lots of talk, very fuzzy on the exact details, except when describing secondhand accounts of war atrocities, of course). The policy/political geeks out there should react with a resounding “Where’s the Beef, Senator?” He spoke at length about forming new alliances, mending old ones and having a plan for Iraq, yet he never expounded upon exactly what he was going to do to build, mend, and execute in a better fashion than Bush. This “foreign policy” debate was supposed to be a killer for Bush, but I don’t think it came across that way.
I so desperately wanted to have Bush rebutt more of Kerry’s claims. Oh, how I longed for him to say: “90% of the costs? 90% of the casualites? Really? I wonder where my opponent got those numbers… Do the sacrifices that the Iraqis are making account for nothing in his view? Their casualties of the ‘resistance’ dwarf ours. They are losing sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, true Iraqi patriots on a daily basis. And yet, each day, we see huge lines at Iraqi police and National Guard recruiting stations. We see countless brave Iraqi men standing up for the cause of freedom, standing up for their future, regardless of the cost. They see, first hand, the costs of standing up to terrorists, thugs, bandits and monsters, and yet they continue to line up, day after day. How dare he denigrate those brave citizens by implying that their losses, their casualties, their costs don’t count?”
But alas, Bush just isn’t a good public speaker, nor is he a good debater, per se.
Now, on to the Vice Presidential debate, which I view largely like I view the NFL Pro Bowl: largely meaningless, with a potential for some good plays and decent spectacle, but in the end, rather meaningless.