"Kerry won by a landslide"

October 1, 2004 7:19 AM

The Toronto Star asked its reader to pick the winner in Thursday's debate between George Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry.
posted by johnnydark (62 comments total)

Candians think Kerry won. There's a shocker.
posted by willpie at 7:24 AM on October 1, 2004

I'm sorry, the Toronto Star?

Here's a slightly more useful poll wrap up:
3 Polls Show Kerry Won Debate Over Bush

Not that I put much faith in polls, but you could have put a little more effort into the post.
posted by malphigian at 7:26 AM on October 1, 2004

Sorry, I meant to link to These poll results on ABC news
posted by malphigian at 7:27 AM on October 1, 2004

The Toronto Star asked its reader...

heheheh.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:33 AM on October 1, 2004

Surely there must have been someone in the suburbs who thought Bush won. But, at any rate, yay Canada!
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:39 AM on October 1, 2004

Canada wants Kerry, the world wants Kerry, most of America wants Kerry! I am looking forward to watching those poll numbers start tipping in Kerry's favor.
posted by fenriq at 7:41 AM on October 1, 2004

This BBC page tracks a wider range of responses.
posted by josephtate at 7:49 AM on October 1, 2004

The Toronto Star asked its reader...

I knew newspaper readership was shrinking, but Jeez, they better hope that guy doesn't stop subscribing!
posted by soyjoy at 7:50 AM on October 1, 2004

I watched the debate last night and simply can't understand how that man is the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.
posted by disgruntled at 7:52 AM on October 1, 2004

This is clearly the thread for links to opinions, so here are some on the BBC site. A few there (but still very much a minority) who thought Bush did well.
posted by cell at 7:54 AM on October 1, 2004

I WON! I played the debate drinking game last night and won a hangover this morning.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:55 AM on October 1, 2004

On style, Kerry was better than Bush -- but that's not a surprise...Bush is not the most eloquent or articulate speaker.

On substance & policy, however, Bush won. Period. Kerry's insistence on "alliances" and "coalitions" at all costs is just too bizarre...unless, of course, he's talking about North Korea, in which case he wants to go it alone. Strange.
posted by davidmsc at 8:12 AM on October 1, 2004

The cons are so worried they are changing tactics guys! Justice Scalia now says "Sexual orgies are the way to ease social tensions"
posted by acrobat at 8:14 AM on October 1, 2004

I think the point of this FPP is to show how another country perceived the debates, because clearly here in the states we are unable to pull our heads out of our partisan asses long enough to review the debate impartially. I checked PBS and CNN after-debate coverage and read my paper (The Raleigh News and Observer) this morning. Hey, what do you know! The Bush camp/All Repubs think their guy won and The Kerry Camp/All Dems think their guy won.

I'll be checking other international reports, but that's just to satisfy my personal curiousity. Obviously no matter what happened in reality, it will be seen here in the states as a "tie."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:27 AM on October 1, 2004

davidmsc - you're on thin ice there. Careful. It's all to easy to substitute "George Bush Sr." there for "Kerry", and so :

"George Bush Sr.'s [ Gulf War 1 ] insistence on "alliances" and "coalitions" at all costs is just too bizarre" - except that it worked quite well for George Bush's father, who patiently and skillfully built a powerful, broad coalition against Saddam Hussein prior to launching the 1st Gulf War.

And, George Bush Sr. had the wisdom and intelligence - sadly lacking in his son - to understand that a US occupation of Iraq after the first Gulf War would have quickly become a fiasco.

"Bush Sr. Said In 1996 That War With Iraq ‘Would Turn Entire Arab World Against Us’

By Jason Leopold

Former President George Bush predicted in 1996 that if the United States were to engage in another war with Iraq, one aimed at overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the “entire Arab world would turn against us” and the U.S. would alienate its allies in the international community.

“.....To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero,” Bush said in an interview with the BBC marking the five-year anniversary of the Gulf War.

Moreover, Vice President Dick Cheney said at an energy conference six years ago that hundreds of thousands of United States soldiers and Iraqi civilians would die if a war in Iraq were ever fought on the streets of Baghdad.

To have brought the (Gulf) war into the populous Iraqi capital of Baghdad where Hussein is based would have involved a different type of military operation than in the desert, and would have put large numbers of Iraqi civilians and hundreds of thousands of our troops at risk of being killed,” he said.
"

_________________

I don't think of George Bush Sr. as an especially nice man - quite the opposite. But I do credit him with considerable intelligence.
posted by troutfishing at 8:36 AM on October 1, 2004

Has anyone found a good analysis of the numerous "facts" thrown out last night? I know the AP printed one quickly, which I found wanting.

But many of the things Bush said (for instance, that there's 100,000 trained Iraqis out there right now) I've seen debunked before. I'm curious if any writers have taken the time to fact-check.
posted by fungible at 8:41 AM on October 1, 2004

fungible - that's number's been fact-checked....as wildly inflated. Try Googling it. But, back to the subject :

The CBS public scorecard gives Bush C's for both content and delivery, while Kerry gets a B+ for content and an A- for delivery.

All of CBS's three pundits give Bush far more favorable marks than do the CBS public.

The TV punditocracy is fatally compromised, and it's notable that even the Blogoshpere's conservatives have opinions on this debate which seem to sync up more closely with the public view.

Meanwhile, the TV pundits are drifting lazily away from reality - somewhere tending bar and shining shoes on a yacht called "Fellatio to Power lll"
posted by troutfishing at 8:44 AM on October 1, 2004

On substance & policy, however, Bush won. Period.

Now you just have to keep repeating it until it comes true.
posted by eatitlive at 8:46 AM on October 1, 2004

Even O'Reilly said yesterday that today the NYT would say Kerry won, and that even if Bush shows up drunk without pants on Limbaugh will say he won.
posted by glenwood at 8:50 AM on October 1, 2004

davidmsc - You are a brave man my friend. Can't you see that the point of this thread is for these people to jerk themselves off and cum all over each other?
posted by Witty at 8:55 AM on October 1, 2004

Kerry's insistence on "alliances" and "coalitions" at all costs is just too bizarre...unless, of course, he's talking about North Korea, in which case he wants to go it alone. Strange.

As opposed to President Bush, who calls his critics globalist toadies when they call for international cooperation in Iraq, but is now begging the Chinese to pull our ass out of the mess he ignored in North Korea.

Turn off Fox News and pick up a newspaper. Bush's shtick about never asking another country's permission to defend this country's interests is empty rhetoric. When politics would not permit this country to act alone, as it would not in Iran or North Korea, President Flight Suit goes to other countries hat in hand.

The only difference between Kerry and Bush on this point is that Kerry's honest about the need for international cooperation. Bush is too much of a cowboy to acknowledge the reality that our nation's ability to act unilaterally is usually limited.
posted by rcade at 8:56 AM on October 1, 2004

i saw a president who, when jammed up, resorted to hunching forward and blurting "terra terra terra freedom terra 9/11 freedom hard work terra terra". the man is a simian laughingstock and so are his supporters.
posted by quonsar at 8:57 AM on October 1, 2004

Poor Witty, he so wants to have an orgasm.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 9:05 AM on October 1, 2004

Who doesn't?
posted by Witty at 9:06 AM on October 1, 2004

Not me! I'm saving myself for the Candidate I Love.
posted by chicobangs at 9:10 AM on October 1, 2004

This orgasm... you say it...

I mean, of course people who favor Bush are going to give him higher marks than those who favor Kerry. But the fact that Bush's supporters are doing less than declaring him the winner is a good sign (for Kerry).
posted by eustacescrubb at 9:15 AM on October 1, 2004

the man is a simian laughingstock

I'd been searching for this phrase...
posted by mert at 9:17 AM on October 1, 2004

I believe the official Freeper talking point is now that the President was tired from spending all day giving love to hurricane victims.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 9:17 AM on October 1, 2004

Ah, so all those foreign powers who support Kerry are Canadian. Makes sense. I'm not sure that Bush is clear on the difference between ANWAR and Canada anyways.

But, on preview, What does Poland think? You can't forget Poland!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:23 AM on October 1, 2004

I wish Kerry had pointed out each time Bush evaded a question and swerved back to talking points. Something like, "I just want to note, you just asked President Bush whether my election would make the world less stable, and instead of answering your question he said he plans to win the election and talked about 9/11. Now . . ."

And on preview, yeah, wtf was that about "giving love" to the natural disaster victims? Er, thanks really, but . . .
posted by onlyconnect at 9:28 AM on October 1, 2004

More and more, I've been thinking that we should round up all the pundits and "political consultants" and burn 'em like witches. It's sad, people making a living by dividing America, turning folks against each other. The things is -- there are legitimate viewpoints from the left and the right, only no one can hear them anymore through all the noise.
posted by ph00dz at 9:29 AM on October 1, 2004

Here's FactCheck.org's analysis of the statements presented. (FactCheck.org seems pretty non-partisan in general, I think; they're a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which admittedly I don't know much about, so someone should correct me if they're a lefty hivemind/bunch of dittoheads.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:33 AM on October 1, 2004

The impression I was left with was that Bush's brain regularly goes blank. At which point he has to fall back on 2-3 sound bites he's memorized.

There a big difference between a dramatic pause and trying to remember the point being made.

This is telling. President Bush can not maintain a thought process for more than a few seconds. And if he can't do it in a televised debate which he's spent several days practicing for, how can he be expected to do it in the oval office? Are we really seeing the ease at which someone might control the man by whispering in his ear? Doesn't this help explain why he thinks Iraq is the focus of the war on terror?

Somewhere along the line "Saddam is a bad man" became one of his default sound bites. So invading Iraq becomes a solution for almost everything. Several time last night he responded to non-Iraq issues by defending the invasion of Iraq.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:52 AM on October 1, 2004

Has anyone come across a poll wherein a majority says Bush won? I suspect not, but I'd be interested to learn if there is at least one.
posted by alumshubby at 9:58 AM on October 1, 2004

I'm going to go out on a limb, and say that the American People actually won this debate. This was a fairly substantive debate with both sides clearly defining what their Presidency would entail. The President stuck to his talking points, but we all knew that he would, but Kerry did a good job of brining the fight directly to the President's policies. The President looked tired, and irritable that someone was actually questioning his motives. I wonder if this is a factor of him being in a perpetual cocoon - anywhere he goes, the campaign makes sure that like minded people fill the stands and lob softball questions. If I were charitable, I would say it was a tie. However, my gut feeling is that Kerry bested Bush in this debate, but I'm a partisan so YMMV. One thing to think about, is if this debate really was a draw, which I think it wasn't, it really means that Bush lost. For Bush, foreign policy (terrorism, Iraq, etc.) is his strongest asset. His whole campaign is about the strong leader who doesn't channel mixed messages to the enemy, is resolute, and never changes course (even if that means going over a cliff). He was supposed to best Kerry easily in terms of national security - I mean he is the freaking CnC. So, if Bush actually only tied Kerry in this debate, it means he lost. He lost bad.
posted by plemeljr at 10:06 AM on October 1, 2004

i saw a president who, when jammed up, resorted to hunching forward and blurting "terra terra terra freedom terra 9/11 freedom hard work terra terra"

Did this RNC convention mashup get posted already?
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:15 AM on October 1, 2004

Obviously no matter what happened in reality, it will be seen here in the states as a "tie."

And as most political observers would note, a "tie" is a win for the challenger. The first, and perhaps most important obstacle for Kerry is to convince the nation that he is a viable alternative -- not necessarily a good alternative, but also not some random nut-case.

Also keep in mind that terrorism is Bush's best subject to talk about. If he did this poorly with a sure thing, I can't wait to see how he does with domestic policy (debate #3).

On the McNeil/Lehrer news hour discussions after the debate, when the Republican representative was asked how his candidate did, he responded that it was a "tie." That's how truly awful Bush performed. I'm so glad that the press decided to keep the response split-screens so people can really see the personality of the men under pressure.

To be honest, I almost expected Bush to walk away from the podium in disguist at one point, he looked so frustrated and angry. I think it was when Kerry referred to the actions of Bush Sr. in comparison to his son.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:18 AM on October 1, 2004

The person you agree with most won. As usual.
posted by darukaru at 10:33 AM on October 1, 2004

The person you agree with most won. As usual.

And an overwhelming number of people agree with Kerry's positions. As usual.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:38 AM on October 1, 2004

Thanks, Johnny Assay, that looks pretty nonpartisan. I wish Kerry hadn't overstated some of those facts; it's not like he needed to. Bush, of course, lives in a dream world, so for him to overstate a few things seems normal.
posted by fungible at 10:39 AM on October 1, 2004

That was quick. VIVA POLAND!
posted by solistrato at 10:44 AM on October 1, 2004

How Bush Did (8mb, mov, highly condensed edit of the President's utterances last night.)
posted by crunchland at 10:44 AM on October 1, 2004

The President looked tired, and irritable that someone was actually questioning his motives.

with regard to this whole "bush would be a fun guy to hang out" thing that's supposed to be part of his appeal, he's always struck me as someone who would actually be fun to hang out with if you were playing cards, or pool, or darts or something like that -- as long as he was winning. i bet when he's winning, he's the life of the party, cracking jokes, buying rounds (seltzer for himself, of course), smiling and funny.

but when he starts losing...he strikes me as the type who "accidentally" knocks game boards over or says, "i'm bored with this, let's go do something else," meaning something he can win at. and i think that this applies to how he behaves politically as well, which is why they manage his appearances so that he's surrounded only by the faithful.

another thing about this debate: i wonder why the same pundits who ripped gore a new one for his body language and facial expressions during the debates last time around have gone so easy on bush for his in this year's debate?
posted by lord_wolf at 10:54 AM on October 1, 2004

Anyone beginning to think that Bush Jr. is suffering a degenerative mental illness? He never was a great talker, but it seems he's getting worse and worse at keeping it together. How old is he -- could it be early Alzheimers or somesuch?
posted by five fresh fish at 11:14 AM on October 1, 2004

If you confuse "bilateral" with "bisexual" and believe any adjective with the prefix "bi-" is anti-Christian, you might be a Bush supporter.

If you believe in an all-encompassing "they" who "attack us," thus justifying a costly and fatal war in Iraq, you might be a Bush supporter.

If you believe that personal progress is effected when approaching a job interview (say, for example, a presidential debate) with stammering incoherence and bad posture, you might be a Bush supporter.

If you're into guys who blink, you're either a meth addict or a Bush supporter.

If you believe a coalition involves calling in favors from microscopic nations that not even your humble president could find on a map, you might be a Bush supporter.

If you believe "it's hard work," you might be a Bush supporter.
posted by ed at 11:28 AM on October 1, 2004

fff, I agree, there seemed to be something wrong with Bush last night. Thinking back to the 2000 debates, he was a much better speaker. I don't know if he's actually ill, but something is going on.
posted by sonofsamiam at 11:30 AM on October 1, 2004

James Fallows (who wrote the When George Meets John preview in The Atlantic) has a scorecard:

That was George Bush's worst performance in a debate, by far, ever. My mantra had been that neither Bush nor Kerry had ever lost a debate. That is no longer true.

posted by kirkaracha at 11:38 AM on October 1, 2004

Hey, "giving love" is "hard work." He'll do better in round two! :)
posted by LouReedsSon at 11:48 AM on October 1, 2004

But then again, in 2000 they had a real leader in Gore and they blew that one.

That's the worst mispelling of Bradley I've ever seen.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:03 PM on October 1, 2004

... when Kerry referred to the actions of Bush Sr. in comparison to his son.

Maybe the same point: Kerry used the phrase "the Presdident's father." I knew instantly in my gut that this would infuriate GWB. Sure enough, pan over, and he's doing that thing where he narrows his eyes and looks around at nothing like a hoodlum in detention.

It just drove home for me once again that GWB's main driving motivation is distinguishing himself from and to his daddy. He's a wannabe rebel, lookin' for a cause.
posted by lodurr at 12:54 PM on October 1, 2004

Bush vociferously did his doodie last night. I can't believe people say Kerry's smarter than Bush. I mean Bush knew how to use a big word like "vociferous" in a sentence. Wow. I was so impressed. [/sarcasm]

When Kerry quoted from Bush Sr saying there was no exit strategy from an Iraqi invasion, I was practically on the floor. Shrub doesn't listen to his own daddy. When he has his mind set on doing sumphin, ain't no pesky things like facts and common sense gonna get in his way.
posted by ZachsMind at 1:09 PM on October 1, 2004

That was George Bush's worst performance in a debate, by far, ever.

Now, how's he going to I didn't do it that? There's a buck that can't be passed. If he loses, he lost it here: imagine the whacks his little place in history piñata will get then--from Republicans alone! He'll go down in Pottery Barn history. Oh, the schadenfreude.
posted by y2karl at 1:19 PM on October 1, 2004

Has anyone come across a poll wherein a majority says Bush won?

I'd suggest FreeRepublic.com or weeklystandard.com... they have a vested interest in their pony being perceived as victorious.
posted by clevershark at 2:04 PM on October 1, 2004

fff: my be is Korsakoff Syndrome.
posted by Space Coyote at 2:33 PM on October 1, 2004

most of America wants Kerry!

Actually, no. If that were true, there wouldn't be so much interest in the debates.

Me thinks your confusing metafilter with the real world. I assure you, it's not.
posted by justgary at 2:46 PM on October 1, 2004

Shrub doesn't listen to his own daddy.

According to Bob Woodward, Bush says:

"He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength." And then he said, "There's a higher Father that I appeal to."

posted by kirkaracha at 2:47 PM on October 1, 2004

i'll bet there's an accidental kernel of truth to that snl skit where dana carvey takes will ferrell out on a hunting trip and ponders putting an end to his developmentally challenged son's bumbling life, for the safety of the world at large.
posted by t r a c y at 3:04 PM on October 1, 2004

fff, I agree, there seemed to be something wrong with Bush last night. Thinking back to the 2000 debates, he was a much better speaker. I don't know if he's actually ill, but something is going on.

It's not just last night. He's been in a gradual decline for a long while now.

He's in his mid-fifties. It'd be a little early for him to be getting senior-citizen diseases, but it's not unheard-of.

Not that his mental state really makes a difference: as far as I can tell, Bush is a puppet for powerful men behind the scenes. I really don't think he makes any executive decisions based on his own analysis of facts and information: he does what he's told to do. IMO.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:06 PM on October 1, 2004

I WON! I played the debate drinking game last night and won a hangover this morning.

I got a Bingo last night! Bush confuses a person, Bush says Osama, free space, Coalition of the Willing...and I bingoed on "Nucular." (It took long enough to hear him say that!)
posted by SisterHavana at 4:52 PM on October 1, 2004

Bush's debate notes
posted by amberglow at 5:51 PM on October 1, 2004

According to an NPR report today, Mongolia picked Kerry over Bush. No link, but I was surprised at how close it was.
posted by Dick Paris at 6:19 PM on October 1, 2004

fff, I think you may be on to something too. And of course, it wouldn't be the first time the U.S. had a president whose physical capabilities were in decline.
posted by orange swan at 6:29 PM on October 3, 2004