Polls: Kerry won debate
Bush clearly won the start of the campaign, succeeding in defining Kerry as a waffler, an aloof aristocrat who is weak on defence. Tonight's debate was the first, and probably last, chance Kerry had in defining himself to the voters, and to do so in positive terms. Judging by two small opinion polls conducted just after the debate, Kerry did win. A Gallup poll reported by ABCNews says Kerry thought 45% won against Bush with 37% and 17% thinking it was a tie. Interestingly, the same poll had Bush's lead change from 50-46 to 51-47. CBS News polled 200 uncommited voters, and among them 43% handed the debate victory to Kerry, 28% to Bush and 29% called it a tie.
A victory last night was necessary for Kerry to stay in the race in any meaningful way, and he appears to have gotten it. After some unfortunate waffling he has landed on a clear anti-war message ('but we'll complete the job in Iraq') that can be defended, and that is a strong platform for launching an attack on George Bush. This debate, where Bush has a mixed record and Kerry only needs to attack it, was tilted in favour of the challenger, and Kerry was indeed up to the task.
The problem for Kerry was that everybody already knew that Bush is no great orator, and voters would not have expected him to deliver Reagan-quality putdowns. A weak debate performance has already been accounted for by voters who nevertheless prefer Bush.
Kerry's "win" tonight was what he needed to stand a chance, but he will now have to go on and produce a campaign that can win over a sufficient amount of swing voters. That is a tall order against an incumbent who has never pretended to be a great debater or orator. Tonight's debate simply confirmed the strongly held opinion that Bush is a man of action, not of words.
Update: I am trying to actually see the debate for myself now, on Fox News' website. It seems a hell of a lot of people got the same idea.
1:01:06 PM 
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