Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive 01	50		2004/10/06, 08:06 am

That's nnot the only time cheney met Edwards

That's Cheney on the left edge of the screen, administiring the oath to newly minted NC Senator Elizabehttp://www.dailykos.com/images/admin/edwardscheney2.jpgth Dole.

http://www.dailykos.com/images/admin/edwardscheney2.jpg

The web site that Dick Cheney wanted you to visit:

http://www.factcheck.com

At least, that is what he said he wanted you to do. I advise all Republicans to ignore what Dick Cheney said.

As I predicted earlier, Bush did a lot better in this debate. He looked more prepared and more at ease which makes sense for him in the town hall format.

He looked a lot more Presidential in general.

Who won this debate will probably be split evenly among party lines.

Should be interesting to see what the independents think.

I apologize but I don't think that Bush looking "more prepared and more at ease" makes him look "a lot more Presidential in general".

That said, I didn't get to watch the debate until about a 1/2 way through.

I don't believe that President Bush picked up any undecided voters. He and Kerry both appealed to they're base. I liked Kerry's aggressiveness, I believe the Dem's in general need to appear less wimpy if they want to win.

Bush looked like he snorted too much Coke; overly aggressive and twitchy.

I have to agree, Bush's body language is all over the place and with his history I would not doubt it. He definetly lost the first debate. In the second debate everyone thought he would do better because it was more laid back. (Basically on a third graders level, you know bush's level.)WRONG!!! He still lost again!! I find it funny how he express's himself and trys to sound like he knows it all and is never wrong. By acting like that I think it just angers us American folk. Just my 2 pesos........

Bush lost narrowly. I don't think it was coke, more like crystal meth. He looked a little paranoid otu there and his voice was almost cracking from his near-screaming.

I think Senator Kerry was at the lying game at last nights debate. Now the republicans have been hammering this "flip flop" or changing position issue. Two statements that i thought to be lies were when he said if elected he would do things differently in post war Iraq. Then the issue of taxes. When he looked into the camera and said he would promise not to raise taxes I had to laugh. Now I am a registered independent but I think Bush clearly won last nights debate. I think he overexposed Kerry with being on every side of just about every issue. Abortion, lawsuit reform, and the patriot act are just a few I seen him switch positions on just in that one debate and I did'nt even see the entire show.

Kerry said he would raise taxes on incomes over $200,000 and not for anyone else.

I have to agree with Catocony that it was more likely crystal meth. My thinking cap was not fully adjusted when I suggested coke.

Add Jbr1176 to those tokin the Ice if he thinks Bush exposed anything but his ignorance and stubborn refusal to admit any mistake. Changing your mind when the data presented changes is not flip flopping -- it's called reason and flexible thinking. Something the dogmatic dim witted Bush knows nothing about. I truly cannot believe to this day that this guy goes from riding the short bus to being President. As his equally challenged supporter Don King says " Only in America ! "

Jbr -- please delineate the iissues you believed Kerry changed his mind on that night. I certainly saw none . Kerry clearly stated he was personally against abortion , but could not and would not impose HIS morality on the rest of America. It was a personal choice not a covernment choice. Where is the flip flopping there ?? Sounds like the way the Constitution intended it to be. Certainly a welcome change from the views of GW who thinks everyone should be a born again Jesus freak. He imposes his view of moralty on all of America, damn the Constitution , to the detriment of us all. Then he talks about appointing judges who strictly interpret the Constitution -- talk about flip flopping !!

How can you possibly know he was lying about taxes and post war Iraq ?? You and Miss Cleo related somehow ?
Was Papa George lying when he said " read my lips - no new taxes " , just because circumstances changed and he had to do just that ? Of course not. He was sincere at the time just as Kerry is now.

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quote:

Then he talks about appointing judges who strictly interpret the Constitution -- talk about flip flopping !!

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What makes Bush's fundamentalist religious views and his desire to impose them on all of us all the more infuriating is it is in the model of the common jailhouse conversion (particularly applicable to those on death row): a loser finally realizes he has made nothing of his life (or actually worse) "finds" Jesus and thinks he has made amends and now has a life worthy of respect. Bush's is the upper class version: someone is given everything conceivable to make something of himself, but instead becomes an alcoholic (and most likely worse), goes AWOL, gets arrested multiple times, and then finds Jesus. All I can say is Jesussss. . ..

I'm glad that Bush brought up Dred Scott though. It's nice to know that he will appoint Justices and federal judges who are opposed to expanding slavery into the western territories.

I'm sure he'll get the black vote now. ;)

OTOH, if the upcoming election goes the way I fear it might, I wouldn't mind if the Confederacy rose again and became a separate country. Then the northern liberals in California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and other progressive leaning states could choose our President, one who hopefully would then have an IQ higher than a gutter rat.

What about Florida though?

Well here are my thoughts on the last debate.

This is Kerry's last big chance to really make his case and win over the undecided voters on social and domestic issues.

Polls show that on topics of social security, the economy, and most other social and domestic issues that Kerry’s position is favored over Bush’s.

Bush still holds the advantage in Iraq, the War on Terror and national defense. If Bush wins, I think it will be one of the few elections where foreign policy issues mainly decided the election. That and Bush's people successfully scared the electorate into voting for him. (I.e., a vote for Kerry is a vote for another terrorist strike. This kind of rhetoric annoys the hell out of me…)

That being said, I think Democrats hoping for another Bush performance like in the first debate are simply kidding themselves. The bar is so low for Bush in this debate in particular (since this is considered Kerry’s main strength), that all Bush really needs to do is appeal to his conservative base (which he'll do quite adequately) and Kerry needs a home run performance.

I am not confident of this happening. Kerry will be Kerry and he’ll be effective, but Bush should be good enough and prepared enough so that most voters are still evenly split after hearing the debate.

Bush will do fine in this debate. And since the bar is so low for him, when he treads water and does ok many analysts and viewers may even declare him the winner. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bush is a narrow winner in this debate like Kerry was in the second debate.

Let’s hope I am wrong and Bush totally biffs it worse than he did in the first debate.

Here is my take on it. Although it was obvious Bush did better in the second debate than the first, I found the polls conducted immediately after the debate surprising in that Bush's demeanor was still extremely annoying. Many thought Bush's slide in the polls was over after the second debate. Well, today one of the networks, I can't remember which, reported a new poll that shows a fifteen percent advantage for Kerry on the question who won the SECOND debate. In addition, the presidential poll numbers are continuing to slowly move toward Kerry, with Zogby's three-day tracking poll showing a 3 percent Kerry advantage today; somewhat anomolous though is the Rasmussen tracking poll which still shows a Bush lead of about the same amount (so that I would not have to live on a steady diet of Rasmussen, today I subscribed the the Zogby poll, at a relatively pricey $110 for the rest of the election season).

An unknown though is whether the polls will be less accurate this year than in others because of the apparent rise in new voters registering. If a majority of the new voters vote for Kerry, as some speculate, this may introduce some error into the polls in that I doubt they are picking up the newly registered voters in sufficient number. In any case, things appear to be moving in Kerry's direction, and he may only need to solidify the trend at the third debate in order to be viable on election day.

Having said this, I have never bought the argument that the domestic debate will be Kerry's strength. When people say a Massachusetts liberal can't be elected, it is not because of foreign policy but domestic policy, the subject of the debate. So, Bush will attempt to portray Kerry as a Massachusetts liberal, and if Bush hadn't already shot his wad with a string of vicious attacks on Kerry (IMHO not a good strategy for the person running for President; leave the heavy mud-slinging to the underlings) he would have had a pretty good chance of success at using the debate to plant doubts about Kerry. But people may be tired of Bush's negativity and attacks, and ignore them, in which case we are back to who seems more intelligent and Presidential: in other words Kerry wins. In addition, if Kerry can at the debate reassure the voters he would govern in the Clinton mold rather than the Teddy Kennedy mold, this could defuse some of the residual doubts some of the swing voters may have about him.

The real problem for Kerry though is the electoral map. Everything will have to break Kerry's way in order for him to win. At least he needs Florida and probably Ohio, along with Pennsylvania. Very difficult if he doesn't get all three. A touch job, but I'm not giving up; I think he has a reasonable chance of pulling it off.

(Message edited by LAguy on October 12, 2004)

Laguy, you may find this site interesting as well: http://www.electoral-vote.com. It tracks the latest polls and how they would translate into electoral college results.

From all appearances, this is going to be another close one. I just hope we don't end up with another Democratic popular win, but Republican electoral win.

I have to say that anyone who posts here with great excitement that some poll shows their candidate with a 3 point lead is clearly too young to be on this BBS. At this point, none of the polls really matter, its a close race.

The polls on November 1 will probably offer some guidance. My prediction is that if the Nov 1 polls show a close race, Bush will lose the popular vote. If the Nov 1 polls show close races state by state, Bush will lose most of those races. My reasons:

a) New voters. Recent data shows a big surge in new voters registering as Democrats.

b) Turnout. Democrats generally win if turnout if high.

c) The Nader factor. I believe that Ralph won't get 1 percent this time around.

d) In a close race, the challenger generally picks up the undecideds.

Explorer: If polls don't matter at this stage, on what are you basing your opinion its a close race?

While it is true that the closer one gets to the election the more predictive the polls will be of the election result, this does not mean polls don't matter until Nov. 1. If such were the case, the campaigns would not spend the money they do on polling. Indeed, as a general matter, polls fairly accurately indicate voter sentiment at the time they are taken. Three weeks ago, before the debates, they showed the Kerry campaign in great trouble and I believe that conclusion was accurate. Any excitement those of us Kerry supporters who understand polls are showing at this stage reflect Kerry's improvement in the polls, not that any poll taken today suggests he will, in fact, win the election.

At best, polls can give you a trend, but not the absolute relationship in standing between the candidates. A lot of people believe that what one particular poll states is reality. We used to get Bush supporters here in September posting poll numbers all the time; now, the new polls depress them so much they don't post anymore.

Here is an article that has some good history on polling
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04286/394384.stm

I am assuming that Bush will be better in this debate than last week, which was better than the week before, whereas Kerry will be the same, same, same. It is all a plan by Karl Rove to make Bush look like a master debater.

Kerry smells blood. He will be fine.

Bush is getting, in a word, "smarmy". He's acting like an asshole basically.

What the heck was up with Bush not remembering that at one point he was telling us he was not concerned with Osama Bin Laden? Geez, we had debates here back in '02 when he made that statement.

Kerry mis-spoke when he said that Bush never met with the Congressional Black Caucus, I suspect that he meant that Bush never did the traditional meeting in Congress, instead Bush invited them over to the White House. Not a good point for Kerry.