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Journal pudge's Journal: Genius 40

Journal by pudge

The Bush campaign had a stroke of genius by putting the vice presidential debate less than a week after the first debate, on foreign policy.

Cheney completely commanded the portion of the debate on Iraq tonight. Edwards came out swinging about how things are going poorly in Iraq, and Cheney pointed out there are many positives. Deflated. Edwards came right back and said Hussein had no connection to 9/11. This was his rebuttal to Cheney's point about how there are positives, and he continued this as his main point in the next question. Cheney said, well, I never said there was any such connection. Deflated.

So now all those people who might have been a bit concerned about US foreign policy direction under Bush after the first debate, see that it is all sane and reasonable and under control after this debate. And therein lies the genius.

The Bush people knew Bush would have problems in that first debate, and by putting Cheney in this position neutralized much of the negative effects on Bush.

Cheney didn't smack down Edwards as much as I thought he might, but he won the day handily. Edwards simply isn't equipped to handle Cheney: he has a tremendous grasp of all the issues, is quick, and neutralizes passion with calm reason.

I did finally listen to the Bush-Kerry debate from Thursday. I watched about 10 minutes of it, listened to the rest. I thought Kerry "scored more points" in debate contest terms, but I thought Bush's arguments were just fine, and I think his case was stronger. Of course, that's largely because I agree with his arguments, but I still think he made a decent case.

That said, Kerry still owned the debate, commanded it. Bush was on the defensive and really didn't score many hits. But Cheney owned Edwards. The big question is whether Bush will handle the next two debates well. I think he will handle the town meeting one better than Kerry by quite a bit, and I think the final debate will be a draw.

This discussion was created by pudge (3605) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

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  • I think Bush laid back last week. Let Kerry set his own traps.
    You saw some reaping of what was sown last week during the VP contest.

    Seriously, Kerry edged Bush slightly on technical points. Woop-de-doo. If Bush is half the retard that they say he is, why do they have such a tough time with the nuance-fellows?

    This election is about leadership. Not shifting with the polls, but leadership. Sure, leaders change their mind. Bush went to the U.N. for a 17th resolution on Iraq in the hopes of gaining broad
    • Bush went to the U.N. for a 17th resolution on Iraq in the hopes of gaining broader support. But he still did the job.
      Point of fact: Bush's 'rush to war' took over 18 months. Pretty insoucient if you ask me.

      So then why did it take *so* long? Was Bush hesitating to make the decision to "do hard work"? ;)

      I think your point only stands if you feel that the rush to war with Iraq was justified.

      Personally, I don't.

      • I think your point only stands if you feel that the rush to war with Iraq was justified.

        The word "rush" is only accurate if you consider 13+ years and three presidential administrations 'rushing'. Iraq had many years and many UN resolutions and many opportunities to comply with the terms of the cease fire agreements of the first gulf war. It never did.

        9-11 changed how we viewed the 'risk' of allowing Hussain to stay in power. The idea of a "rush" to war is a non sequitur.

        Further, those who argue that

      • So then why did it take *so* long?

        Because they decided to try to work through the UN.

        I think your point only stands if you feel that the rush to war with Iraq was justified.

        There was no rush to war. They decided to take Hussein out, and tried to work through the UN to do it. When that failed, they went in.

        I think you can only call it rushing if you think there was some reason to wait. But inspections *did fail*. There was no reason to wait any longer.

        That's one of the biggest lies Kerry is telli
  • I did finally listen to the Bush-Kerry debate from Thursday. I watched about 10 minutes of it, listened to the rest. I thought Kerry "scored more points" in debate contest terms, but I thought Bush's arguments were just fine, and I think his case was stronger. Of course, that's largely because I agree with his arguments, but I still think he made a decent case.

    You really have to watch a split screen (where they show both canidates while one is speaking) to really see just how badly Bush did. His facial ex
    • You really have to watch a split screen (where they show both canidates while one is speaking) to really see just how badly Bush did. His facial expressions while Kerry was speaking were far more damaging than anything he said.

      First, no, I don't. I am far more interested in substance. I think more people really have to listen to the debates without watching them.

      Second, I saw some of that, and I saw the Democrat commercial that included what I can only reasonably assume are the worst of these facial ex
  • Cheney ate Edwards, digested him and shat him on a plate which Bsh will now serve to Kerry.

    *it's been a weird scat fill morning, doo wap doo wah*
  • Winning your base is not winning. According to CBS [cbsnews.com]:
    A CBS News poll of 178 uncommitted voters found that 41 percent said Edwards won the debate, versus 28 percent who said Cheney won. Thirty-one percent said it was a tie.

    Seems like Edwards 'won' with the people who, unfortunately, matter most in this election.

    • According to ABC [go.com]:

      Among registered voters who watched the debate, 43 percent said Cheney won, 35 percent called Edwards the winner and 19 percent called it a tie. One factor is that more Republicans tuned in -- 38 percent of viewers were Republicans, 31 percent Democrats, the rest independents.

      Different poll, different results, different conclusions.

      --trb

      • To be fair, I believe that ABC poll was weighted republican (38% to 31%). Their reasoning, I believe, was that there were more republicans watching (shrug).

        To me, polls don't hold much weight unless I have access to the complete methodology and questions. And frankly, right now I don't trust CBS on anything. They've lost my trust. I'll tentitively go with the ABC poll.

      • You didn't address the previous comment about the CBS poll being of undecided voters. Sure a partisan poll is going to get partisan results. Undecideds will probably decide this election. For Edwards to win among them, even if you or I don't agree, is a big win for Kerry.
      • Well, if you take the partisans out of the ABC poll and assume the independants are truly independant - you're left with the 19% who are independants breaking out at 18% Cheney, 14% Edwards and 68% of them calling it a tie. So slight edge Cheney.

        If you either assume the independants aren't (and can be lumped proportionately with either party) or leave them out entirely. Then your polled audience is 55%R/45%D - and they poll at 55% Cheney / 45% Edwards -- so it's a true tie.

        So either Edwards won (accordi
        • But he avoided a number of questions by simply not responding -- effectively conceding that Edwards point was correct.

          Such as?
          • These two come to mind:

            the gay marriage question
            the Cheney's congressional record

            As I recall, he said nearly nothing or nothing in during his 90 or 30 seconds time allocations.

            • Re: gay marriage. Cheney fully answered the first question asked, and simply had nothing to add. That's not a concession.

              As to his own Congressional record, Edwards didn't answer Cheney, first! If you recall, Cheney blasted Edwards' record. Edwards did not respond to those criticisms, and instead blasted Cheney's record. Neither one of them responded to the claims of the other.
              • If I recall correctly Cheney blasted Edwards' record in response to criticism of Haliburton. Cheney claimed that any criticism of Haliburton was simply a smokescreen to take attention away from Edwards' own record. The problem was that Edwards' record wasn't the issue at hand and what Cheney was doing struck me as the obvious smokescreen. I thought that was easily Cheney's weakest moment in the debate.
    • Um ... this poll is almost completely worthless. It's 178 people. The margin of error is huge at 7%! The difference of 13 points between the two candidates is actually *within the margin of error.*

      Note this garbage on electoral-vote.com: "John Edwards won the vice-presidential debate 41% to 28% among uncommitted voters according to a CBS poll. An online poll conducted by MSNBC makes the margin of Edwards victory even larger: 67% to 33%. While the MSNBC poll was not a scientific poll, it did have 885,000
      • Sure, with the MOE the continuum ranges from Edwards winning handily, down to it being a tie. I wouldn't say it has no validity. Every poll has validity, but some are more valid than others. The ABC had 509 registered voters and a 4.5 point MOE -- screening down to just their undecideds gets you to 96 -- about 1/2 of the number of people in the CBS poll -- that probably doubles the MOE of the ABC poll with respect to the beliefs of undecideds who again are the only ones that matter in this discussion. P [wsj.com]
        • I wouldn't say it has no validity. Every poll has validity, but some are more valid than others.

          Most polls with a very high margin of error, like this one, are not published because they are not trustworthy enough to be published. Scientifically speaking, yes, it has some validity, but it is so misleading that for practical purposes, it is invalid.

          But anyway... quickie polls like these, while interesting to look at, are inherently much less reliable indicators than their bigger brothers.

          Which is why
          • We know you dislike Bush

            I wouldn't go that far. I just disagree with his policies - I think they are tilted too far toward his base. I also believe that governments activities should be completely open - the Bush administrations broad policy of secrecy is antithetical to that.

            and we know you have no data to back that up.

            Right, without a broader poll the data is not there to back that up. On the merits of arguments and scoring points a lot of that goes to the audiences core beliefs - you can make a

      • Note this garbage on electoral-vote.com

        To be fair... electoral-vote.com [slashdot.org] noted the results of the Survey USA polls today. And while not an outright retraction of the previous, they do say they're clearly different than the "instapolls".

        And today's map shows that nobody is going to win! Yay!

    • That means a lot. Because CBS News really has ton of credibility right now. ;)
  • I know the next one is on Friday... when is the third?

  • The Bush campaign had a stroke of genius by putting the vice presidential debate less than a week after the first debate, on foreign policy.

    I dont know if it was a 'stroke of genius', but it certainly was timed deliberately. There's what? Two days to discuss the VP debate before the next presidential debate? Which is scheduled this Friday?

    This debate, good or bad, will have little to no effect (closer to no effect) on the outcome of this race. With the next presidential debate coming up Friday, we'll

  • I think Cheney did a pretty good job. Edwards just didn't know how to handle him and that caused problems. There are times both could have (should have?) smacked the other down hard.

    As much as the media is saying that this debate was heated, I don't think it was heated enough.

    I think it is funny that Cheney called people to go to Factcheck.com [factcheck.com] when he meant Factcheck.org (indicative of many of the base, present company excluded, not being as suavy about the Net?). Now Factcheck.com [factcheck.com] is redirected to

    • That is a serious thing to overcome, 900000 jobs down (not the 1.6 million that Edwards stated) is still a heck of a lot. Selling an economic recovery is going to be hard. I know that there are stats to back up both/either side. I don't think the stats matter as long as people are either out-of-work, related to someone who is out-of-work, or friend of someone who is out-of-work. When 6 degrees kick in... those 900000 turn out to be a bigger problem for this Administration that it needs right now. Heck, I kn
      • If the Kerry campaign had any brains, they'd focus on the economy & job losses. While I think the economy has recovered some

        But therein lies your problem. People vote more on where the economy is headed and where it is, than where it was.

        everyone knows some one who's lost their job recently

        But everyone who is paying attention knows a few more things: a. Bush did not cause the recession; b. the country has GAINED jobs since the end of the recession (even though strong job losses continued through
        • Figures aside... as long as people are personally feeling job losses, or know people who are... people look around and say "what recovery?"

          • Figures aside... as long as people are personally feeling job losses, or know people who are... people look around and say "what recovery?"

            Sure, but this has been a constant since before any of us were born, in every single election. If the real problem is people personally feeling job losses, then I don't see much more of a significant problem for Bush than any other incumbent. In Augusts of incumbent election years, unemployment was 5.4 in 72, 7.5 in 76, 7.6 in 80, 7.0 in 84, 5.2 in 88, 7.5 in 92, 5.1
            • We'll see how it plays out. Based on your info, the 5.4% jobless rate shouldn't hurt Bush. But the 96,000 increase in a work force that is at odds with the projected 144,000 to 150,000 that is itself at odds with the "healthy 250,000 that many economists say we should to seeing.

              Why do we still have this tepid growth? Is it going to get better? That remains to be argued...
              • I just read Stephen Moore from Club for Growth who made the case the stock market has been soft in large part because investors fear a Kerry presidency. I lend no credence to this argument, because I cannot prove or disprove it, but the same was said by the librals about Bush in 2000, so I figured I'd mention it. :-)

                Anyway, Greenspan said we were in a soft patch, but we were headed in the right direction. That seems to be holding steady now. You can't judge an economy based on a few months -- annual job
        • I think you misunderstood my point. Though I didn't explicitly say it, I wasn't arguing about the fact of the recession, recovery or whether Bush had anything to do with either. I only meant that as a political strategy, Kerry's camp has been really stupid to attack the things they did and if they focused on the economy, they would win the election. Would I be pissed if they did & won by blaming Bush for what the economy has done the last few years? I most certainly would because I feel that on the
          • I only meant that as a political strategy, Kerry's camp has been really stupid to attack the things they did and if they focused on the economy, they would win the election

            I understood that. I think you are misunderstanding MY point, which is that because of the facts, I don't think Kerry would be able to necessarily win that way.

            Have you followed the voter registration fraud that is going on right now?

            Not much. It's so hard to follow, with scores of conflicting stories, and I only hope that someon
            • I understood that. I think you are misunderstanding MY point, which is that because of the facts, I don't think Kerry would be able to necessarily win that way.

              We'll have to agree to disagree on that point then. I maybe be wrong or the people I know may not be a fair representation of the rest of the country, but I believe the economy focus would be a winning strategy for them. We'll probably never know becaues I don't think they change at this point. Then again, Kerry has been known to change his posi

              • Your point on being being an nation of laws is well taken--though it's probably not as true as it should be and exceptions slip through.

                Exceptions prove the rule. If we make mistakes, we still accept that the result is valid until it is proven invalid, at which point we take action against it. It's the reason why we have almost no violence in our political system.

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