So, I watched the first debate tonight.

Personally, I think neither candidate did that great a job. Kerry started off nervous, but grabbed ahold of the tone several times. The only problem is he would fall back and let control loose before following up with anything really strong- with a couple exceptions. For his part, Bush came out swinging but became repetitive after a while, and his body language was just a little too relaxed at times and a bit too annoyed at others. I’ll say this though- both candidates did a good job of remembering that the cameras were always watching (methinks they both remembered Al Gore’s fatal exasperated sighs during the 2000 debates). Neither one overexaggerated anything body languagewise.

This debate, focussing on Security and Foreign Policy, was Bush’s best chance to really take control of this election. I think at times he did excellently (see the “consistent with inconsistency” reply), but at other times he just couldn’t seem to fire off that witty line that would deflate Kerry (ala Reagan’s “Well, there you go again” remarks to Mondale back in 1984) or show that Kerry didn’t have the chops for the job (thinking back to Lloyd Bentson’s smackdown of Dan Quayle back in 1988). For his part, Kerry made clear his current stances on Iraq and managed to finally separate himself from Bush in what he believes, but it may have been a case of too little, too late.

There are two more debates coming up, plus the Vice Presidential debate. If either of the tickets wants to take control of this election, then they really need to bring their A games to the rest of the debates because both candidates need a lot of work behind the podium.

Out.

Posted in General |

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