Forty-eight hours after the first presidential debate of the 2004 campaign the Newsweek poll suggests that Bush’s support may be slipping after a lacklustre debate performance.
Clarence Page has an interesting column in this morning’s Chicago Tribune in which, bucking prevailing Democratic partisan opinion, he puts the win for the first debate in the Bush column “by a word or two”. His reasoning: Bush did what he needed to do; Kerry didn’t.
Kerry showed he could cram an encyclopedic amount of information on foreign affairs, the subject of last week’s debate, into a two-minute answer. Those of us who have been closely following his past speeches were impressed by the brevity and focus of his answers, for a change.
But Bush showed himself still to be the master of stretching about a dozen words of geopolitical vocabulary to fill out 90 minutes. The president’s responses were tailor-made for people with short attention spans, which probably describes most undecideds. Let’s face it, if they still haven’t made up their minds at this late date, they really haven’t been paying attention.
Mr. Page then surveys Bush’s concentration on one narrow point in the debate the motif of “working hard”. Mere repetition or making the point?
Can you catch the preplanned talking point in those statements? The guy must have used the phrase “working hard” or “hard at work” a dozen times or more. Same for “mixed messages” and “mixed signals” to describe Kerry. Talk about clarity. You could perform brain surgery while listening to Bush on the radio and not miss a thing.
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post all featured the Bush campaign’s latching onto Kerry’s “global test” prominently in their campaign coverage.
New York Times:
President Bush criticized Senator John Kerry on Saturday for suggesting that pre-emptive military action by the United States would have to pass a “global test,” saying that the “Kerry doctrine” would cede national security decisions to other countries.
LA Times:
Calling it perhaps the “most disturbing” moment from his debate against Democratic candidate John F. Kerry, President Bush on Friday criticized the Massachusetts senator for saying that any decision to launch a preemptive military strike should pass a “global test.”
Washingon Post:
President Bush said Saturday that under a “Kerry Doctrine,” Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry would require permission of foreign powers before launching military action.
The Chicago Tribune did mention it but their coverage was distinctly “belong the fold”.
I couldn’t find any mention of this point at all in the Boston Globe.
IMO, this was Kerry’s most significant gaffe in Thursday’s debate. If it gains any traction it may come back to haunt him. In fairness to Mr. Kerry I believe that the statement is being taken somewhat out of context and his choice of the word “global” was poor. I suspect that he meant to say that gaining the support of the American people before going to war was a universal test of the choice to go to war. Unfortunately that reinforces Mr. Bush’s other point: that—advertently or inadvertently—Mr. Kerry conveys a mixed message to allies, foes, and our own people.
