Doug Ross @ Journal

Quick debate reaction

I think many of us underestimated the president. Informed, glib, funny and self-deprecating, Bush pounded Kerry continually -- and deservedly -- on his twenty-year record in the Senate. Out of the mainstream of American politics, sitting on the Left bank, watching the "...Conservative Senator from Massachusetts, Teddy Kennedy". Kerry, in two decades time, has sponsored virtually no successful legislation of impact and that fact alone had the Senator retreating... hemming and hawing about amendments, names not appearing on bills, and the like. Isn't it time for dinner, Senator?

As for the polls, KerrySpot has some interesting history. Since the 2000 elections, the pollsters -- for a variety of reasons -- have been dramatically underestimating GOP turnout. Need the stats? On a state-by-state basis, here are the dramatically incorrect results of the pollsters. Based upon these sorts of estimates, a 3 point margin for the president could literally mean a blowout victory for GWB.

Update from Fred Barnes:

Now here's a strange twist on the debate. Bush was the winner in a focus group of uncommitted voters conducted by pollster Frank Luntz last night. The 23 voters thought Kerry, not Bush, won the debate. But they split 17 to 5 in favor of Bush on whom they now plan to vote for (one will vote Libertarian). "They still don't trust what John Kerry is saying," Luntz said, though they thought he said it well.

Never

Powerful commentary from the Weekly Standard's William Kristol. John Kerry's track record -- when it comes to national security -- is truly appalling. And there's no perfuming that skunk.

NEVER HAVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE elected as president a candidate with a record on national security issues resembling that of John Kerry. Consider some of the distinctive national security choices Kerry has made over the years... ...Fall 1984: The American people have never elected president someone who, in his first successful bid for federal office, chose to make support for a unilateral nuclear freeze and for major cutbacks in America's defense programs the centerpiece of his campaign. The freeze and the cutbacks would have weakened U.S.-European ties, emboldened the Soviet Union, and strengthened the hand of hardliners in the Kremlin. Kerry has never said that the position he took at this turning point in the Cold War was mistaken... ...January 12, 1991: The American people have never elected president a senator who voted against an authorization for the use of military force, in this case in pursuance of a United Nations-approved policy to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Senator Kerry complained in 1991 that we were engaged in "a rush to war." It turned out that Saddam had been only months away from acquiring nuclear capability. Kerry now cites the first Gulf War as a success for the purpose of contrasting it with the recent one--but he has never acknowledged that his judgment in opposing that war might have been in error...

Never

VodkaPundit LiveBlogs the Debate

Entertaining...

... 8:10. I'd like to hear Bush say, "I'm going to nuke the next motherf'er who even looks at our country sidewise - twice if he's in the French cabinet." And I'd like to hear Kerry say, "I'm going to tax you bastards back to the Stone Age." Something, anything, to generate some sparks... 8:18. "Everything is a gift from the Almighty," Kerry just said. Now, I know every politician panders. But when Bush talks religion, much as it usually annoys me, I buy it. When Kerry says something like he just did, it makes me wish a thunderbolt would hit him, emblazoned with the words, "Take THIS gift, sucker." Because he's treating me like a sucker - and I'm not even religious...

VodkaPundit LiveBlogs the Debate

Links o' the Day

Philadelphia Inquirer: Democrats, with help from media, have waged an all-out war on Bush

The Guardian: God Forbid, a Success Story