It's useless to complaint about the media's obsession with covering the horse race. In fact, the growth of blogs demonstrates that this is not a problem with journalists, but a nearly inescapable result of following politics.

As a result, Kerry supporters are happy, and Bush supporters upset, that Kerry did well on the debate as a debate. Had this been scored by Miss Arthur, the high school debating coach, John would have gotten an A- and George a B (with Greatly Improved, Good Job and a smiley face drawn in red pen).

But I think that the president is right and Kerry is wrong -- and I want Kerry to make his point well and then have the country reject it. The reason conservatives wish Dean were the nominee is so the left could run on its convictions and lose. Nothing would please me more than if Kerry now runs on Dean's convictions, argues them clearly, forcefully and well, and loses.

Gallup contacted people before the debate and only called back those who agreed to be surveyed again after the debate. Even so, 1 in 8 admitted to watching less than half.

Interesting that even though Kerry is viewed more favorably post-debate by 42%, opinions on who is better able to handle Iraq and the WOT barely moved. I'm amazed that they didn't ask people who they would vote for.

ABC conducted a similar poll. They had Kerry winning the debate, but the vote margin was unchanged. Bush led 50-46 before, 51-47 after.

If you don't lie to pollsters, they never leave you alone.

I will bravely admit that I watched almost a full minute of the debate before my (registered Democrat) wife insisted that I switch back to the Air Force-Navy football game - because she couldn't stand to listen to Kerry talk.

Let's not forget that Kerry and his supporters seem to have an unhealthy obsession with process above all else-- witness their repeated cries of "if only UN could get involved and have more conferences!". So of course Kerry doing well in a process, even one as meaningless as last night's joint appearance, makes the Anything-But-Bush people feel a little better. At least their guy has finally demonstrated he can do something right, and unlike all his sports related gaffes, it's in something that's even remotely related to his supposed day job— talking. Too bad it's ultimately irrelevant as an indicator of performance in the job he wants.

(And I'm proud to say that I've kept my record intact-- I've never watched a minute of these performances since the one where Poland was freed. But I was young and stupid and in college then.)

I've never watched the debates either - I like politics, but generally not the way it's presented on TV. If I wanted to watch something like this, I could probably catch "Dull Pointless Sophistry" (or its spinoff show, "Two Hours of Piffle") on The Philosophy Channel.

I had the TV on through the whole thing. I heard maybe a third, saw maybe a tenth. But if a pollster calls, I watched the whole thing.

I'm in the 42% anonymous talks about. I do actually think a little better of Senator Kerry, but that has no effect on my vote nor who I think would handle US foreign policy better.

Good numbers for the President. Look at #6 "Who do you trust more to handle the responsibilities of commander-in-chief of the military: John Kerry, or George W. Bush?" Bush went up and Kerry went down. On the key issue! So who "won" the debate?

Bob:

Exactly. Kerry wins on style, the Prez on politics, but it's a political event not a beauty contest so the Prez wins in reality.

I watched the whole thing, but I was only able to do it with the aid of two very stiff Johnny Wlker Black's on the rocks. It was a gut wrentching experience. I am still reviewing the transcript to find the reasons why Kerry should tarred and feathered.

As promissed the reasons why Kerry should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a fence rail:

And part of that leadership is sending the right message to places like North Korea. Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense.

You talk about mixed messages: We're telling other people you can't have nuclear weapons but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapons that we might even contemplate using.

Not this president. I'm going to shut that program down. And we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation.

I just can't get over it. Unilateral Nuclear Diarmarment returns from the grave. What else is he going to bring back from the 70s, Disco?

This cannot be acceptable to any large segment of the American people. We are the good guys. We can be trusted with nuclear weapons. Our possesion of nuclear weapons is an assurance to the rest of the world that they can live in peace, not a reason or excuse for them to so arm themselves. Kerry is adopting the position of the tinpot dictator. If the United States has nuclear weapons, I should have them also, so I can protect myelf from American Imperialism. If I were the RNC I would have a major national ad campaign playing this up.

AND

The president always has the right and always has had the right for pre-emptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the cold war. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control. No president through all of American history has ever ceded and nor would I the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

But if and when you do it, Jim, you've got to do it in a way that passes the test. That passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing. And you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

Here we have our own secretary of state who's had to apologize to the world for the presentation he made to the United Nations. I mean we can remember when President Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis sent his secretary of state to Paris to meet with de Gaulle. And in the middle of the discussion to tell them about the missiles in Cuba he said, here, let me show you the photos. And de Gaulle waved him off and said, no, no, no. The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me. How many leaders in the world today would respond to us as a result of what we've done in that way?

Kerry burried it in a lot of fog but I think what he said is that we can act preemptively, but only if Jacques Chirac would trust him to do it and the Secretary of Sate won't have to appologize to the UN.

Again, I think the Republicans can and should lash him for betraying a bedrock principle of American foreign policy that goes back to George Washington. We will not subordinate our self-defense to the judgment or needs of our allies. Any thought that we should or would, even by voluntary self-censorship, must be rejected.

I watched the first forty minutes or so, but then spent the balance of the time monitoring the "liveblogging" coverage because that was more interesting.

For my part, I think it was, in wargaming terms, a tactical draw/narrow tactical victory for Kerry and a strategic victory for Bush. Kerry did much better on style than I had expected, especially in that he didn't try to cheat as just about everyone in the punditocracy had expected he would, and Bush missed some obvious opportunities to pummel his opponent (though he did seize on others). However, Bush got in some good hard licks on the issue of Kerry's Schroedingerian Iraq policy, and he's already hammering hard on the "global test" quote. As noted elsewhere, the initial polls, while acknowledging that Kerry did very well stylistically, also note that he did _not_ succeed in substantially changing people's perceptions. So: tactical draw, strategic Bush victory. Look for GWB to amend his stylistic shortfalls in the next debate.

A couple of interesting points, to me at least: 1) The second debate is next Friday. In other words, no one will be watching. Certainly not "undecided" voters. If you haven't been following things enough to have made up your mind, you're not going to sit in front of the TV and watch these two for 90 minutes on a Friday night. 2) I read on MSNBC that the DNC is putting out an ad featuring newspaper headlines from today saying that Kerry won the debate. Huh? Has there ever been a lamer idea for a TV commercial? Is that really worth a nickel of airtime? And speaking of ads, I notice the media is in total lockdown mode over the latest Swift Vets ad, featuring the wives of POWs. Pretty impossible to attack them, oh wait, I forgot that the Swifties have been totally discredited...