CE 7

[Mary]

Melon, you don't annoy me. When i disagree with people, i explain why, but it doesn't mean I'm annoyed. I gather this is about that post i wrote in irritation one night and then deleted before you got to read it, but whatever it was that even gave offense is long since forgotten, and honestly I've had a very difficult month and so i've been a bit on edge lately and I've sometimes lost the civility that I usually try to maintain.

....i'm definitely NOT the "ruler" of the RS boards though, my god.... what an appalling fate that would be for everyone involved!!!!!!

[melon1]

Everything's cool. Gone to bed. G'night.

[shin]

Edwards most certainly did not cream Cheney. And Cheney most certainly did not cream Edwards.

What surprised me about this debate wasn't so much that, imo, it was a total tie, but that each VP candidate was strongest in the area by which everyone assumed the other would be strong in.

I thought Edwards did extremely well with his facts, or at least enough to match tit for tat with what Cheney said, even on foreign policy, and that Cheney did very well selling himself as an average person (being "fired" and what not, not to mention his sensitive side concerning Mary).

And on the flip-side, Cheney came across as unreliable on facts (he HAS said Iraq and 9/11 were connected and he has in fact met Edwards at least a handful of times before, to use two examples) and Edwards came across as being too much of a snakeoil salesmanish trial lawyer for his own good.

Who knew?

[Dr. Drum]

The Cheney-Edwards debate was a total draw as far as I could see. Bit of a depressing spectacle at times with the mud slinging back and forth. Edwards seemed to have a slight case of nerves early on in the foreign policy section of the debate, but he held his own reasonably well overall. I also thought he bested Cheney on domestic issues. Cheney, though, even when you disagree with him is usually able to put across an aura of having it all under control which I would imagine, in troubled times, is quite reassuring to a lot of voters.

BTW, Mary, no one bit but I was curious to hear where you were heading with your question on democracy in the Middle East.

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

I've just been studying the transcript of the first Presidential debate (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041001.html), and wondering what Mary wanted to hear. Given the limited time available for answers I thought the candidates did reasonably well, that differences could clearly be discerned etc. Mary, what sort of things were you looking for that you didn't hear?

Btw, I thought Kerry was excellent on the subject of nuclear proliferation.

[Ampage]

John Edwards, Prince of the double thumb point. My vote may be swaying……..

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

No, you MUST vote for Bush. We want Mary in London.

[Proud]

"Yeah, I meant that. Couldn't have been simply implying that you're left of center."

well, there you go.

[Ampage]

JesusLooksLikeMe said:

No, you MUST vote for Bush. We want Mary in London.

Well, hopefully she takes Alec Baldwin with her.

[Proud]

ABC:

Cheney - 43%
Edwards - 35%

"According to an ABC poll, 43 percent of registered voters said Cheney won, 35 percent gave the win to Edwards, and 19 percent called it a tie. Thirty-eight percent of the viewers were Republicans, 31 percent Democrats, the rest independents. The phone survey was conducted among a random sample of 509 registered voters who watched the debate."

CBS News:

Edwards: 41%
Cheney: 28%

"CBS News' poll specifically focused on uncommitted voters and found 41 percent deemed Edwards the winner, 28 percent chose Cheney, and 31 percent said it was a tie. CBS based its poll on a 'nationally representative sample of 178 debate watchers ... who are either undecided about who to vote for or who have a preference but say they could still change their minds.'"

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

The British media is without exception reporting a tie, with a few low blows apparently landed by both men. My mate says it's playing the same way in the German media.

International scorecard so far:-

Bush/Cheney - 1/2
Kerry/Edwards - 1 and 1/2

[chrisfan]

I always feel like I'm so late in the conversation post-debate that it's not worth it for me to give my opinions. So I'll give my opinions on the opinions ...

As I said, I personally thought the Kerry/Bush debate was a draw, but at the same time, I can understand why people would say that Kerry won, and after watching it again taking the commentary into consideration, can understand even more why people would have said that Bush lost. This time, I cannot understand AT ALL how people could say that Edwards won. Given that I think I was on such a high from how Cheney handled the foreign portion, I can assume that I ignored some of his misses on the domestic portion, to understand how people could say it was a draw. But I cannot fathom calilng Edwards the winner.

To me, the most dissapointing part of the debate was the way Mary Cheney was brought into it. I think both candidates handled the bad situation well, but I thought that was a low-point. I'd have to go back and check, but weren't there even two questions on that? Both which were tied into Mary Cheney? That's just not right. It pisses me off immenesly the way that she has been dragged into the public discourse. She's a lesbian, and she's a Republcan. So what? The woman has been harassed by gay rights groups who demand that she come around to their way of thinking simply becuse she's gay, and that's just sick. Not only that, but I think that such action weakens the gay rights movement. Mary Cheney is supposed to be liberal, and support gay marriage simply because she's gay? We're really supposed to by into the notion that all gay people must think alike? And that's supposed to be a GOOD thing for gay people? Yet, heterosexuals can be very very divided politically, and that's normal? Come on! Who you are attracted to, who you enter into relationships with, and who you sleep with is a small part of who you are no matter who you are.

I haven't seen anyone comment on Gwen Iffel (sp), so I will. I was dissapointed in her. I thought she did not do nearly as good a job as Jim Leher did last week. She lost track several times of where they were in the format - who was the next to get a question / who had already spoken. And I thought while some of her questions were good, many of them were weak. Several times, she asked questions that were so personalized to one candidate that the other one really didn't have a logical place to even start with an answer.

[Ampage]

And don’t forget she chose to wear a wife beater under her jacket! LMAO!

[Galactus]

Last night, I had only listened to it in the radio. In that context Cheney held a bit more of a lead beuase strictly in terms of what was said he had an "elder statesmen" quality. After to seeing some of the footage though I'd really have to put them in the tie catagory. The way Edwards looked Cheney in the eye when he was talking to him as if to say "You don't have to admit it but we both know it's true"... very effective. Several questions Cheney just didn't answer and he got in two false "I never"s to Kerry's one. The news outlets seem to be giving it to Edwards though... could it be "october surprise" time?

[chrisfan]

DED, Cheney certainly made some factual blunders, so I can understand why you'd bring them up. But why ignore that Edwards did the same thng? As one example, he insisted more than once that hte cost in Iraq is $2 billion, and insisted that Cheney was lying when he said it was $1.2 billion. But news organizations today are backing up the $1.2 billion. Yes, BOTH made factual mistakes.