Who Won the First Presidential Debate: Kerry or Bush?

[GENIERE]

I’d probably give the edge to Kerry. He’s finally decided on a steady position for the last week or so and maintained it in the debate and admitted to making an error in his “voted for voted against...” statement.

The edge goes to Kerry because he is more articulate and managed not to appear pompous. Kerry did wander off topic and inject other issues, against the rules, while Bush did not. I don’t think the average person would notice. Otherwise both were on message.

Although I give the edge to Kerry, I don’t think he can expect more than a few (3) points gain in the polls.

He probably did well enough to ward off most of the criticism from his own party.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Although I give the edge to Kerry, I don’t think he can expect more than a few (3) points gain in the polls.

That would be all he needs, according to the most recent polls, and ignoring Gallup, which seems to have a statisticaly biased sample problem (reminiscent of the old Literary Digest poll which gave the 1936 election to Landon. They used telephone polls, and in that depression year, many more repubs than dems had phones).

 

[check]

I just hope Kerry continues to this well. If he does, and if undecided voters are paying attention, he'll win for sure.

Isn't it great when you have such a close election? Man, I bet debating who would win the 1980 and '84 election would have been boring. Has anyone seen electoral results for those years?Yeesh!

Oh and this JUST in:

Gallop phone poll of about 600 registered voters show that 53% of people think Kerry did a better job and 47% say Bush.
Don't know what that'll mean, but yeah...

 

[Gokul43201]

My opinion ends up going the wrong way, so I'll shut up.

Here are some other people's opinions :

Joe Scarborough just said that Bush looked like he kinda lost steam half-way through (like he had 30 minutes of material for a 90 minute debate).

Supposedly, Ralph Reed was looking miserable just after the debate...so that's probably a more relevant and telling opinion.

But for the people that trade on the Iowa Electronic Market, Kerry's stock dropped by 8 times as much as Bush's...so that's the flip-side.

A bunch of "analysts" are saying that Kerry seems to have come out as an anti-war candidate...and how does an anti-war President win a war ?

An online poll here : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/ with about 500,000 votes now for "who won the debate" has a whopping 70% voting for Kerry.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Where did you get the 500,000 number from?

 

[GENIERE]

OK lefties don’t get too excited. In “clarifying” his position, Kerry is now committed to it. Obviously he can’t afford another flip-flop. He provided several easily attacked statements. The “global permission” comment, (can’t recall actual statement) will certainly haunt him as well as the N. Korea position.

While Kerry managed to become competitive, he still has an uphill battle. Bush didn’t deliver the knockout punch I hoped he would.

 

[Gokul43201]

Where did you get the 500,000 number from?

It's written in gray next to an asterisk. Now the number is 611,425 votes.

 

[Gokul43201]

OK lefties don’t get too excited. In “clarifying” his position, Kerry is now committed to it. Obviously he can’t afford another flip-flop. He provided several easily attacked statements. The “global permission” comment, (can’t recall actual statement) will certainly haunt him as well as the N. Korea position.

While Kerry managed to become competitive, he still has an uphill battle. Bush didn’t deliver the knockout punch I hoped he would.

Yes, this may be tough for him, and I've no doubt whatsoever, that we'll soon be seeing ads talking targeting the "global test" (not "global permission", there's a difference) quote.

 

[russ_watters]

That would be all he needs, according to the most recent polls, and ignoring Gallup, which seems to have a statisticaly biased sample problem (reminiscent of the old Literary Digest poll which gave the 1936 election to Landon. They used telephone polls, and in that depression year, many more repubs than dems had phones).

Gallup's explanation of that makes sense to me.