First Assessments - Debate 1

Most commentators are claiming a slight Kerry win or a draw. I wanted to sleep on it before making up my mind, but that seems about right. I think Kerry did what he had to do to stay alive. He heartened his supporters. He made it possible to keep raising money and embolden his campaign.

Bush, however, did not lose votes. He lost an opportunity to win the election. I’m sure Karl Rove is disappointed, but not really worried. He wanted to put the nails in the coffin, and that didn’t happen. But his candidate is still leading and was not really hurt.
Some missed opportunities, too.

Kerry said the Saddam was not a threat and then said that he was – in the debate. Kerry argued for a more bilateral approach the North Korean situation, arguing against bringing China and other regional powers to the table to force the issue. Bush could have hammered that as a multilateral approach that Kerry is against. He handled it okay, but could have hit it harder.
Kerry’s only bullet was the nuclear proliferation question, and primarily because he got the question first – but he had a good, ready answer and this is a good issue for Dems to beat Republicans on. For some reason Republicans see this issue as internationalized, namby-pamby, go-through-the-UN-slushfund crap, and sometimes it is that – but it’s a full blown crisis that Republicans seem to be belittling more. Bush linked it to terrorist agencies, and I think he did that honestly – that is the way he sees it – but the nuclear proliferation issue is more than GWOT.

Tangent: Dems like Schumer have consistently brought this up in floor debates, regarding nuclear detection research and so forth, and yet HomSec never seems to get the research done. If something happens – Dems will have a clear conscience and be able to point to numerous calls to recognize the issue and Republicans will have lots of incidents on the record where they blew it off.