10/09/2004 08:49:58 AM|||Nathan Moore|||

I'm sure my conclusion is no surprise - Bush won, and his performance was as masterful as George W. Bush could possibly be. And then on top of that, he wasn't half bad from an absolute standard. With 25 days left, Kerry's senate record is starting to make its way into the meat of the presidential campaign. There was no response from the senator about key missed votes, the mention of which torpedoed many aspects of Kerry's campaign strategy. Attacking the President on failures of intelligence is more difficult when you've been called out for voting to de facto end the intelligence capabilities of the United States. Posing as strong on defense is more difficult when everyone knows you've voted against every defense appropriation bill for twenty years.

Most importantly, Bush is winning the argument over Iraq. No matter what Kerry tries to do, foreign policy is going to dominate the conversation through election day. Last night the President was able to articulate, quite well, I believe, the rationale for US action in Iraq, and the world as we knew it vis a vis WMD's prior to liberation. In doing so, Bush did well to not let Kerry off the hook for his exponentially multiplying positions on the subject.

The President's answers regarding North Korea and Iran were effective as well. Throwing in a jab about Kerry's politically opportune calls for multilateralism, wanting it in Iraq, but not in North Korea, was effective as well. But Bush did best while showing that we are taking different tactics with different enemies, that we are in fact "doing something" about all of them. The Left can't continue to have it both ways, demanding more diplomacy when Republican presidents have moved to the next step, and demanding less when a Republican is pursuing the diplomatic course first. Kerry, who has shown himself to be hawkish only when it comes to sanctions (which Bush repeatedly pointed out we've already been doing with Iran) can't maneuver with this plan of attack. Kerry still lacks credibility on issues of national defense, and until he shows he's willing to fight for something, dancing about with various "nuanced" forms of terrorist friendly diplomacy won't earn him that credibility with the American electorate.

I was surprised that Kerry did not make a bigger issue out of the job numbers released yesterday. Bush was certainly vulnerable on the issue, but seemed to take no hits on the economy last night. Kerry started with a sort of potluck approach on the first couple of questions, throwing in attacks in rapid succession with no logical consistency. The intent was to say that Bush is "bad", but the message wasn't clear, and what could have been an effective attack on the President was lost in the shuffle.


(aside, watching C-SPAN - a woman from Savannah, GA was just on air saying Bush appeared to be a "gang leader"...geeze - if C-SPAN did screen their calls, it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining!).

|||109733177826037223|||Bush Wins