Presidential Debate #3

I think John Kerry won this debate like the other two and here is the reason why: in a race this close, the swing/undecided voters are key. I don't see how George Bush convinced any of them to vote for him with his performance in any of the debates.

First off, Bush pulled a triple decker flip flop in his debate demeanor. In the first debate, we saw the Befuddled and Lost George. In the second debate, we saw the Loose Cannon George. Tonight we saw the Silly-grinning, Joke-cracking George. None of these versions inspired any confidence and frankly smelled of desperation. All that smirking irritated me. Why does he speak like he's talking to simpletons when he is obviously the intellectual lightweight in the room?

Kerry on the other hand, showed clarity of purpose and conviction in his beliefs, debunking the image that Bush and Karl Rove tried to paint of him for the last nine months. That is the problem with constant negative attacks that are so far from reality. The truth may come back to bite you and that is what happened to Bush in the debates.

Karl Rove's strategy is to pander to their base and sure enough, there is always the party faithful who will vote for Bush no matter what. But that can backfire, too. The more Bush panders to the extreme right wing of his party, the more he politicizes the left who can no longer stand his evasions and distortions of which there were many tonight.

If he didn't score any points on style, Bush scored negative points on substance. He is staggeringly out of touch. On the issues of outsourcing and minimum wage increase, his solution was education. He ignored the fact that many college graduates have lost jobs to outsourcing and implied that if you are not educated, you have no right to decent wages. People in the real world are hurting and decent-paying jobs are hard to come by. How can education relieve that problem right now? He didn't say and didn't seem to care. "Compassionate conservative" he is not.

Bush kept distorting Kerry's remarks regarding global test and nuisance when a quick Google search shows how false his allegations are, not to mention that Bush himself said the war on "terror" can't be won. He kept using the word liberal in an attempt to be divisive and scare voters, insinuating that somehow being liberal is less American. He kept distorting John Kerry's voting record, not pointing out that his figures are inconsequential to the total number of times John Kerry has voted in his 20 years of experience in the Senate.

He didn't even attempt to answer most of Kerry's serious charges such as making it illegal for Medicare to bargain for the cost of prescription drugs, turning a $5.6 trillion surplus into a huge deficit and the $2 trillion hole his Social Security plan will cause. He dodged questions about homosexuality and abortion when his rhetoric on the campaign trail is a lot more incendiary.

He had multiple distortions and misrepresentations which to me shows his utter contempt for the electorate. He even denied saying that he wasn't concerned about Osama Bin Laden when he clearly said so in a 2002 White House briefing. Does he think we are too ignorant to notice?

The only positive thing I can say about him is that he loves his wife and children and allegedly prays a lot. Unfortunately for him, those are not enough reasons for four more years of George Bush.


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