BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 10:55 AM

It would be nice, however to have a president who is 1) capable of thinking and 2) willing to think--a pleasant change from what we now have.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 11:22 AM

Like I said Ron, you just don't get it.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 11:48 AM

Reply to most recent GUEST:

The fact is that we are going to have a president, and it's going to be one of these two. Even if one is not as enthusiastic as he'd like to be about EITHER one, there is bound to be a difference.

I'm fairly pleased with Kerry, and I would vote for him even if I were not an "anyone but Bush" person. That doesn't mean he's beyond all criticism from my point of view, but I have never seen a presidential candidate who achieved that standard.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 12:00 PM

Sorry, courageous "Guest"--I'm afraid you don't "get it".

If you think there are no differences, and significant ones, between Kerry and Bush--such as--which one thinks the way to solve foreign policy problems is bombing your adversaries to kingdom come in unilateral pre-emptive strikes?--clue: it ain't Kerry-----then you're woefully out of touch.

It's real simple. Sorry Kerry is not JFK or whoever your ideal happens to be, but at this point he's the only game in town. If you like what Bush has done, and seems likely to do, then either vote for him or stay home. If you don't like the Bush record, vote for Kerry--it's the only way to get Bush out. As several posters have already pointed out, there are actually good reasons to vote for Kerry, even if his opponent were not such a towering intellect and mighty leader, as we know he is.

Congratulations--I don't believe in shadow-boxing Ghosts, so you get the last word in our little debate. If you do want to continue, get a handle.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: jaze
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 12:14 PM

Guest, what is your solution?

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 12:38 PM

This comes from an email by eli Pariser:

Even the conservative pundits gathered on Fox News had to admit that Kerry looked pretty good last night. Bill Kristol said, "I think Kerry did pretty well, and…we're going to have a real presidential race." And right-wing commentator Joe Scarborough conceded: "I don't see how anybody could look at this debate and not score this a very clear win, on points, for John Kerry."

And the voters agree. ABC News said, "John Kerry won the debate," pointing to a poll of independent voters who declared Kerry the winner, 45% to 36%. CBS News said, "John Kerry won the debate," and found Kerry up by 15 percentage points among uncommitted voters. Even Gallup, a polling firm which has consistently skewed Republican, found Kerry winning by 16 percentage points, with a whopping 46% of the viewers saying that the debate made their opinion of Kerry more favorable. On the web, clickers delivered a landslide: with over 250,000 votes cast on the CNN website, 77% of the viewers thought that Kerry won, as opposed to only 19% for Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: dianavan
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 02:06 PM

From the Toronto Star:

I was on the fence but John Kerry pushed me over to his side as the clear and decisive winner. I feel for the Bush supporters who have to justify statements like "The American people know where I stand on this issue" and "I know how the world works" or "I talk to foreign leaders on the phone all the time." And just in case you need a news flash G.W., that glass was empty of water the last two times you picked it up.
Mark Langston, Virginia Beach, VA, Oct. 1

d

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 02:44 PM

There are always those out there who assume that because you don't agree with them you're not thinking; that you are in some "camp" or other (Kerry, liberal, etc.), that you are just flat wrong, and that you refuse to consider any arguments (i.e., unsupported assertions) other that those that support the position they favor. They show every characteristic of the people they criticize.

The message that GUEST appears to be trying to get across is that we should all just go sit in a corner and whimper piteously about what a horrible mess the world is in. Or vote for either Nader or Cobb, which amounts to the same thing.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 03:57 PM

Just watched it on C-span.

It must have been a bit like one of those dreams for poor old Bush, as he strained to remember the lines he'd been given. And kept on having those interminable pauses as his mind evidently went blank about what he was supposed to say.

Of course it's absurd that people would see anything too significant in the way people perform in this artificial type of panel game. Being good at this stuff doesn't mean you'd be any good at being President, and being piss-poor doesn't mean you couldn't have a fair stab at the job. I mean, you wouldn't select a guitar player for a pick-up band on the basis of how well he or she performed in a "debate" like this, so why select a president?

But that's the way this game is played, and Bush really did appallingly, even embarrassingly, badly. But then, most people know they wouldn't be much more articulate in that kind of situation, so it might not hurt him too much. Might even help, as such people identify with Bush. The Homer Simpson effect, you could call it.

..........................

either Bush is lying or he is woefully misinformed on a wide range of international issues.

Or maybe both - they aren't mutually exzclusive.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: jack halyard
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 06:44 PM

What with Kerry and Bush debating in the US, and Howard and Latham debating in Australia, apart from all the other big-wigs debating,
It sounds like all our leaders are just mass-debaters to me.
                                       
                               Jack Halyard

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 09:49 PM

Kevin, what it does show is how well they know the issues, how they view them, and how well they think under pressure. That, I think, is pretty relevant.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 10:21 PM

Yo, Ron Davies...

You way too literal... I had to point that out to the other Ron... Man, I write a little ubsurd satire and you don't get it... The point I was makin' was about the Bush/Gore debates in 2000 when Gore won them all too handilly... and the networks had the peanut galleries packed with NASCAR mentality voters who say, one after another, "Bush won"...

Man, you and other Ron gotta get together and start figuring out when Iz playin', which is 'bout all the time! Don't mean I don't have a few points to get accross 'cept that they is done with a certain amount o' good ol' wes ginny, ah shucks, humor....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 10:36 PM

Bobert, we understood your attempt at satire at the start. We have moved way beyond that in the discussion. I'm not sure what you are trying to get across at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 02:22 AM

From Knight Ridder



The debate's real winner? It depends on the measure

BY SETH BORENSTEIN

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - A panoply of self-styled experts dissected Thursday's Bush-Kerry debate by monitoring smirks, smiles, posture, repetition and redundancy. They parsed sentences and counted syllables. They polled hundreds of people and measured the second-by-second feelings of a handful of undecided voters.

Some, heaven forbid, even paid attention to what the candidates were saying to judge the strengths of their arguments.

But there was one near-constant among the analyses: Sen. John Kerry won.

[...]

Republican pollster Frank Luntz ran his own focus group of 18 mostly undecided Florida voters Thursday night.

Kerry "dominated the confrontation," Luntz said. His focus group voted 16-2 that Kerry had won.

Luntz gave the participants dials that they constantly adjusted to indicate positive or negative feelings for each candidate. Those feelings were displayed in continuous-line charts like heart electrocardiograms. That "tells me what's really happening," said Luntz.

One of Kerry's themes - "I believe we need a fresh start" - scored particularly well, while President Bush's repetition of the phrase "It's hard work" soured voters.

[...]

Bush won one dubious measurement: More people, by about a 3-to-1 margin, bought toilet paper Friday emblazoned with the president's face from the online company justtoiletpaper.com. Co-owner Marc Polish said that really was a win for Kerry - for obvious reasons.


Full Article

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 02:30 AM

From the AP:

The first poll taken after the presidential debate showed Kerry running even with Bush. The Democrat had the support of 47 percent and Bush 45 percent in the Newsweek poll. Independent candidate Ralph Nader had the backing of 2 percent.

Bush was slightly up, 49-43, in the same poll in early September and up 11 points in the Newsweek poll taken right after the GOP convention. The poll of 1,013 registered voters was taken from late Thursday to early Saturday and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 06:22 AM

To some extent I agree with Don there, in principle it does those things, but not too reliably - my point is that this sort of thing is a kind of acting (as Ronald Reagan demonstrated). It would be quite possible to have someone perform very effectively in this kind of situation, but be pretty clueless in reality; and the reverse is also true. It's a special sort of skill, this kind of performance.

For example, harking back to Reagan "There you go again" is a completely nonsensical way of avoiding difficult isssues - but in the mouth of an old pro, it worked.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 09:51 AM

jaze, my solution is simple. Stop supporting the duopology by voting for one or the other of the two parties' candidates, and start voting in a way that is supporting change to the two party system.

Voting for the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate is not effecting change of any sort. Rather, it is the political equivalent of changing the draperies in the front room.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 09:52 AM

Hey Bobert, ever notice how the literal minded are often humor-challenged.

Especially when the humor is at their brand's expense?

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 09:58 AM

"The message that GUEST appears to be trying to get across is that we should all just go sit in a corner and whimper piteously about what a horrible mess the world is in. Or vote for either Nader or Cobb, which amounts to the same thing."

All that statement demonstrates Don, is your inability to think beyond the dualistic and oppositional frame of reference the duopolists want you to remain stuck in, so you don't rock the boat with your vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 10:20 AM

"Supporting" change is not the same as "effecting change". Real change isn't going to be achieved by voting for minority candidates, at occasional elections every few years, it's only going to come by the work that gets done in between the elections. As Joe Hill would have said "Don't vote, organize".

What voting can do is help make it a better environment for that organising, or a worse one. And from all I've heard, I can't envisage that Bush getting back will achieve anything but reduce the room for that kind of organising.

And radically minded Democrats are surely going to be much more inclined to get involved in that kind of hard work in the situation where they are disappointed by a Democrat administration that fails to deliver what they hoped it might deliver, than they would be in the setting of a new Bush administration, which would just their reinforce their dream that somehow a Democrat victory would solve everything.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 10:36 AM

Of course we need to both support and work towards effecting change. There has been a strong movement for change in the duopoly for the better part of a decade, which has many parallels to the same kind of grassroots political reform movement which was co-opted and crushed in the late 19th century by the current duopoly.

I believe that even in this election, we are effecting meaningful, lasting change by supporting the grassroots movement for political reform of the duopoly and the campaign finance system in the US, with our votes, with our campaign contributions, and with our political and electoral activism. We need to put much more pressure on local government, and run many, many more candidates from outside the two parties. Independents and third party candidates need to make an effort to work together as a united front for political and electoral reform. I don't agree with the "don't vote, organize" philosophy. I'm a "vote, organize, and contribute financially" believer.

But voting for Kerry won't bring about any of the necessary reforms needed to the political and electoral system. And as long as the reforms can be delayed by the dire shrieking of the "Anybody But The Other Party's Guy" voting bloc, we will see the US as we know it, continue it's now fairly rapid decline.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Amos
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 10:51 AM

Guest:

I'm sorry but I don't buy it, and I think in this rather perilous time anything that risks edging Bush back in for four more years is WAY too expensive and risky to be a rational political approach.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 10:59 AM

"And as long as the reforms can be delayed by the dire shrieking of the "Anybody But The Other Party's Guy" voting bloc..."

But surely the way to get rid of that is to get rid of the Bush presidency that motivates all that kind of thing? Before you can hope to win people over to the idea that getting a right-wing Democrat into office isn't enough to achieve the changes you need, you need to have that right-wing Democrat in office. It might just be a beginning, but that's a start...

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 11:32 AM

No, the way to get rid of it is to change our voting behavior, and our behavior, which has been quite lax, regarding the performance of our daily duties of citizenship in a democracy.

Only the Democrats believe that voting the Republicans out will effect change, and only the Republicans believe that voting the Democrats out will effect change.

When the system is deadlocked, no change takes place. That is where we are at now, just as we were in 2000. Something will break this deadlock, sometime, but it won't be the results of the upcoming presidential election, and the deadlock will not be broken November 3rd when the winner of the horse race in declared.

It is ridiculous to suggest that the dire political shrieking is only the Republicans fault. That is just blind partisan belief in god/righteousness/truth being on your side, and your side only.

We've been hearing this sad refrain from both sides in US politics since the 1970s. This election is no more or less important than any other, it is just being sold on TV as more important than any other election, so people will keep watching the ads, and buying the products being peddled in the packaging, marketing, and selling of the US elections as infotainment.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 11:52 AM

And the way to solve your money problems is to buy a winning lottery ticket.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 01:10 PM

Change??   Change???

Whose change? What change? It's easy to say "change", or to agree with those who use that word, but Bush wants change, too! I just want to move heaven and earth to avoid the change that he has represented for the last nearly four years.

There needs to be MUCH more specificity about what changes are proposed before that argument means anything.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 04:58 PM

It would have been fun to see a free-for-all debate with the two candidates and say, Jeremy Paxman and David Frost and maybe Dimbleby interviewing - sort of like a trial in the Court of Appeal (England) withthe two canditates as teh barristers and the interviewers as teh bench.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 05:21 PM

That's why they shy away from having these in British Elections - the reverential ritual would just seem like Monty Python, and what people would feel entitled to get would be the Full Monty.

Nearest we have had has been successive Question Times with just the Party Leader and an occasionally pretty savage crowd asking the questions, and David Dimbleby in the chair. I think that might be a better way of doing it actually.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 06:56 PM

"All that statement demonstrates Don, is your inability to think beyond the dualistic and oppositional frame of reference the duopolists want you to remain stuck in, so you don't rock the boat with your vote."

GUEST, you just proved my point. Just because I disagree with you, you try to claim that I am limited in my thinking. Pretty arrogant. There are damned good reasons why I take the position that I do, and it has to do with fairly extensive knowledge of the way political sysetms work in general, and how they work in this country specifically. I have explained repeatedly in other threads why your position won't work here, but you just don't want to see it because it doesn't fit with your wishful thinking.

Go read a few books on political science.   

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 07:38 PM

Don, save your breath.   This guest does not even realize what a hypocrit she or he is.    The guest really does not want multiple choice, it only wants one - the one that it aligns itself with. That is not a democracy.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 08:26 PM

And if he or she was actually a Bush fancier trying to be clever, the arguments would be exactly the same. Smoke and mirrors.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 08:54 PM

Well, Guest---why do I respond to Guests---some elections seem more important than others. I suppose it has to do with many things---Economy, Foreign Affairs, Morality of the nation, Values, and such.

Reagan/ Carter might have been about policy, JFK/Nixon may well have been about charisma, Stevenson/Eisenhower may have been about the future and how it was presented.

This election seems to me to be about Darkness and Light---shall we put it into simple movie terms? Darth Vader aka GWB vs the Jedi (Kerry--have I got that right about Jedi?) Hence why--in my lifetime---this is the most serious of all elections.

A know nothing vs a man of integrity and substance. A "cowboy" vs an intellect. A protector of family interests and corroborating "mah daddy" vs a man of the world.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 10:46 PM

Don't insult cowboys Bill!!   They would not appreciate the comparision!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 02:26 AM

heyacurmudgeon, did you see this is that oh-so-conservative Manchester paper?

At last week's presidential debate, Democrat John F. Kerry took note of an endorsement he received from a man with a familiar Republican name. John Eisenhower, son of the 34th president, last week wrote in a newspaper commentary that he is casting his first Democratic presidential vote in 50 years because of concern about President Bush's policies in Iraq and budget deficits at home.

Eisenhower's flight from the GOP ticket appeared in a place where important Republicans were sure to see it -- the conservative Manchester Union-Leader, in the battleground of New Hampshire. "The fact is that today's 'Republican' Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar," wrote Eisenhower, 82, who has a home near the Eastern Shore community of Trappe, Md. On Iraq, he wrote, "the current Republican leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance."

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 02:45 PM

Right, Ron. Leave off the "boy" in Cowboy then.   Though Cowboys, supposedly, shoot from the hip---hence usually shooting themselves in the foot.

Now if we leave the "boy" out then the "cows" will be upset---so hard to be PC these days---even when writing on a PC.



Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Melani
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 03:23 PM

It was like watching Abraham Lincoln debate Alfred E. Newman.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 05:20 PM

Fourscore and twenty years ago I knew Alfred E Newman and, sir, you are no Alfred E Newman.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 05:35 PM

No, he is very close to Alfred E Newman - except maybe he is a little worried, unlike Alfred.

Subject: RE: BS: Kerry Declared Winner of First Debate..
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 07:19 PM

Unfortunately for Alfred, he looks just like him, too: click