I am writing this before reading anyone else in order to preserve my thoughts without influence.
The President won and by a large margin. He looked calm, happy to be there and in control of his thoughts and emotions. While he made some solid attacks on Sen. Kerry (D-France), he always seemed positive and upbeat. Conversely, Sen. Kerry was whining about the attacks and repeating the same
pre-debunked arguments from the last 3 debates. I just about fell out of my chair when he mentioned
Tora Bora for the millionth time.
Right off the bat The President hit a home run touching on the Afgan elections, the story about the first voter being a 19-year-old woman and the nuisance remark by Sen. Kerry in the past week. The President's remark "You pay and he goes and spends" was priceless and timely.
On Jobs, I could swear I heard Sen. Kerry advocate lowering the Corporate tax rate... nah, couldn't have because that might make sense. The President countered with tax relief with hard number examples and the Senate record.
When the Gay Marriage issue came up, I was braced for a bloodletting but The President make a compelling case for his amendment. The case against activist judges is sound. I still oppose the amendment, but he made a really good argument. The best Sen. Kerry could do was to hit below the belt at Vice President Cheney's daughter. He may regret that remark in the days ahead.
On abortion, The President was positive and persuasive. He laid out plans for Adoption (I am a major Adoption supporter), banning partial birth and lowering the number of abortions performed. All in all a very reasonable and not-scary agenda. John Kerry: I am pro-choice, I respect my faith, but the church is wrong.
On health care The President bitch-slapped The Senator from France up and down the stage. Sen. Kerry was reduced to pleading with America that his plan was not a government takeover, which tells me that is
most certainly is a government takeover. The President hits with MSAs, market-based reforms and TORT reform as well as a nice slam at cBS.
On Social Security, The President again has his way with Sen. Kerry in the worst way. The Senator wants no changes and claims that The President broke the system after he fixed it in the 1990s. The President sticks to common sense reform ideas and clearly states that there is a problem that will only get worse if it is ignored.
Spoons must have been
INSANE when The President ducked the assault weapons ban question. The problem is that Sen. Kerry didn’t make a case.
Did the Senator say "IdeaR" 3 times in his closing statement? Is that supposed to me "folksy"? By the way, did you know he was in Vietnam?
The President closes with a highly Presidential statement.
Overall, The President won all questions except 2 (Assault weapons and the Minimum Wage) which should have been home runs. It was his best performance by far and the worst by Sen. Kerry.
I feel much better now.
UPDATE:
Jeff agrees.
Spoons is again out of his mind...
INDC Bill thinks it was a tie.
Dean goes Bush based on Kerry only offering a list of (French) whines.
The Llamas go Bush with a slam at Kos and Ollie!
Smash is in the Bush camp.
