So the press-conference debate last night was interesting. My opinions on both candidates seems to remain un-affected though. I'll summarize:
Kerry: Bush misled us, Iraq is not connected to 9-11, our allies hate us, it's all Bush's fault, I'll do something that's better. 90% of cost, 90% of casualties.
Bush: Um... Kerry is inconsistent, he voted for war, now he says it was a mistake, he belittles our allies, Don't change horses in midstream. Stay the course.
repeat with minor variations for 90 minutes.
The way I see it, Kerry keeps saying he has plans, and he'll do better without ever saying how. Bush says Saddam needed to be removed and we did.
I've seen people critisizing the one-track nature of the debate, but that was because of the "rules" imposed by the Candidates. Hopefully they will cover topics other than the ones they've been spouting about since day one of this campaign in the future debates.
In the end, it seemed to me that Bush is a fairly bad public speaker. He has trouble getting his words out. But he does, in fact say exactly what he means to say, mispronunciations aside. (Like you've never mispronounced anything, especially with millions of people watching.) What he says is very narrow in scope and very self-serving, but then, this is a campaign, that's what he wants.
Kerry, on the other hand was very polished, always finished in the last five seconds, never stuttered, never stalled, never got excited. It kind of creeped me out.
In a conversation with someone on-line they mentioned that "Bush is a loose cannon" and I responded:
At least if you know a cannon is loose, you know to stay clear and start trying to tie it down. With Kerry, I don't know if the cannon's loose, loaded or a stage prop.
Oh well...