pudge's Journal: Sunday Thoughts

Exporting

In this space some time ago, I commented about how Kerry's plan to deal with outsourcing. One of the things I mentioned was how Kerry talks about how he wants to discourage outsourcing ... except in one case. In his words:

Promoting America's competitiveness in a global economy.

Kerry's plan will allow companies to defer the income they earn when they locate production in a foreign country that serves that foreign country's markets. This will ensure American companies can compete in international markets.

That means Kerry is in favor of encouraging outsourcing of jobs that manufacture goods for exportation.

But what I didn't quite notice before was that Kerry spent a whole page in that same "fact sheet" criticizing Bush for "want[ing] to raise taxes on American companies that export products in order to cut taxes for outsourcing." He goes on to talk about how it is horrible to discourage exporting. Which is what Kerry is doing by giving tax breaks for moving those jobs overseas. Which he says is bad for Bush to do. Which is a good thing for Kerry to do.

My head hurts!

Debates

I did not see the debates. I've read much of them, and caught a bunch clips. I'll see them eventually, probably. They are on my TiVo, and I downloaded them from iTunes Music Store.

Now, some of what happened struck me. Obviously, I disagree with much of what Kerry said, but when it comes down to it, I just think none of it will matter. If you still have not made up your mind who you're going to vote for, odds are you're not going to remember the specifics of what Kerry said that you liked or didn't like, you'll only remember how you felt, or how the newsman told you to feel.

And therein likes Kerry's problem: he can only work on those people who are undecided. He's going to need almost all of them to beat Bush. Even after he "won" the debates, that doesn't mean people agreed with him: debates are not scored based on which side you agreed with. And most polls show Bush still has the lead on Iraq and terror. It's a step in the right direction for Kerry, but it's hard to see that it's going to be enough.

And now we see why Iraq was the first debate: it's the most difficult one for Bush, and he wanted to get it out of the way. Now, it is the issue he polls the best on, but it is not an issue he has hopes to increase his poll numbers on, and war is somethign no one likes, and he's the one who led us into it.

Meanwhile, there's the economy, which is something Bush has plenty of room to grow on, by showing how the deficit is improving, the economy is growing, and jobs are being created. He doesn't need to sugarcoat the current situation, he can just talk about what is actually happening.

Reaction Shots

I love that the networks decided to not abide by the candidates' rules, and showed candidate reaction shots during the debate. Finally, the networks stood up to the candidates. May this trend continue.

That said, I didn't find this nearly as interesting as what many people said. I heard about how bad Bush looked, and then I saw a Democrat ad supposedly showing all these bad reactions, and I was severly disappointed. They were nothing. I think Democrats are still bitter about Gore's poor performance, and are trying to give Bush a taste of the same, but it wasn't even close to as bad as Gore. And I saw Kerry do some of the same as Bush; maybe Bush did it more, I dunno.

But if the Democoratic ad I saw is representative of the worst of it, then it was not significant in reality. Of course, perception is what matters, which is certainly why the Democrats are trying to make it seem like more than it was.

C-SPAN

[sulli]

showed the whole thing on split screen. Most excellent. The Bush react shots (and some Kerry too) were priceless.

Re:C-SPAN

[cascadefx]

C-SPAN's was the best. The Democratic add is actually crap. If you watch the whole thing, Bush had some really bad moments. The worst, I think, are when we would start sentences and then just freeze up. Too much dead air. There are also times that Bush just blinked a mile a minute. It was hard to look at at times, and generally made me feel he was lying (increased blinking is generally attributed to lying).

Kerry did do some stupid things to. His penchant for nodding while taking in information made

Yup

[buffer-overflowed]

My head hurts!

Now, go read the tax code and make it worse.

Re: the Debates. I hope you tivoed C-Span's coverage. They split screened both candidates, only adjusting the framing so that Kerry didn't appear to tower over Bush. It's different and a bit more comprehensive than reading coverage or watching excerpts.

Re:Yup

[pudge]

I actually TiVo'd MSNBC because last time they did the conventions they had JC Watts doing commentary. But they didn't this time. Foo. I usually watch PBS or CSPAN when I watch live.

That's usually the case

[nocomment]

But if the Democoratic ad I saw is representative of the worst of it, then it was not significant in reality.

that reminded me of the anti-Nethercutt commecrials. The best things they can come up with against him are "He promised he wouldn't run for a 3rd term and he did, do you really want someone like this in office?". I saw that and thought, if that was the worst thing they can come up with then Nethercutt is my guy ;-)

Re:That's usually the case

[pudge]

The other thing Murray had was that he dared show images of 9/11 and Bin Laden in his commercial. It's apparently unfair or uncouth to identify our greatest dangers and say one candidate would be better at protecting us from them.

Re:That's usually the case

[nocomment]

It's apparently unfair or uncouth

Well Murray should forward that memo on to Kerry then.

No Comment On This?

[Pave Low]

Your own site is now pushing the Bush Lied!!! theme [slashdot.org] to ridiulous stretches.

I kind of hoped you would join in on that little hatefest. I tried and the Overrateds and Flamebaits flew fast and hard when I didn't drink the kool-aid.

Re:No Comment On This?

[pudge]

I don't mind the story, but the way it was posted was unfortunate. I didn't have the inclination to delve into the discussion, for fairly obvious reasons. It's a stinkhole in there.