Debate

[lesliepear]

I think Kerry won. Sometimes it looked as if Bush was making faces. And I noticed long pauses on his part a few times. Popular opinion seems to think the same with Kerry. But it was kind of dull overall.

I was surprised to hear about people buying armour for their children in Iraq. I was suprised they'd even let that get shipped there. I know we have a volunteer army, I didn't think you were supposed to buy your own protective supplies!

Next debate will be more interesting with real people asking questions.

I'd also like to see the Edwards-Chenney debate. I suspect Edwards has good verbal skills being a sucessful trial lawyer.

I wish they'd do a real debate - more direct questioning of each other. It would make good "reality" tv :)

Comments

[yeoww.livejournal.com]

I thought Kerry had Bush on the defensive...and Bush was grimacing and fumbling a bit, in my opinion.

I too would love to see them just be able to freely question each other. This debate was so staged. And I'm looking forward to real people asking real questions, too - although I imagine the questions are screened beforehand.

[lunameow.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the debates do have to be controlled to a point, otherwise things would get very off-topic, and questions wouldn't be answered. As you saw with last night's debate, there were several points where a question was asked, and the response would begin with, "I'll answer that in a moment, but let me go back to the last question first." Imagine if there were no moderator to keep them on topic. A full-on, free for all debate would end up lasting for hours and hours, with a lot of "I'm right, you're wrong" back and forth with no real answers coming out.

That said, I'm looking forward to the debate next week. It will be interesting to see what sort of questions are asked. And the final debate will be on domestic policy. That should bring some interesting dance moves from Bush as he avoids answering questions.

Oh, and Leslie... I think you're right... the debate between Edwards and Cheney should be a very good one. Along with the trial lawyer experience, Edwards has shown himself to be very witty and well-spoken, while Cheney has a reputation for being very tempermental and making outrageous statements that his own campaign has to clean up afterwards.

[eloren.livejournal.com]

The town hall meeting already is sounding like a joke. Questions have to be submitted to the moderator beforehand and that has to be the question actually asked. No trying to sneak a poser in when you gave a softball to the moderator. I bet there won't be too many hardballs either, but we'll see.

I thought Kerry came off better. I planned to vote for him anyway so I admit bias. He looked poised, he was busy taking notes (Loved Jon Stewart's take on what he was writing) and occasionally smiling into the camera while Bush spoke. Bush, OTOH just looked fidgety and well, suprised when Kerry was talking. Not used to hearing people tell him he's wrong I guess.

I also thought Bush was a bit rude, basically starting a response after Kerry's rebuttal several times - the moderator of course let him. I saw Kerry make several indications that he would like to do the same after some Bush rebuttals, but he was ignored (thus the "I'll get to that question in a moment" times).

[mayna.livejournal.com]

Maybe the moderator is Republican... heh. I listened to the debate on the radio so I don't really know what they looked like.

I agree, Bush isn't used to being told that he's wrong... and I guess he didn't think of good answers before the debate on things Kerry would bring up about his presidency. Either think up good answers before the debate, or have an answer on the fly, but at least have an answer other than "but you're a flip flopper!"