On the Road, Open Thread

A resounding victory for the President.

The Kerry/Edwards handlers made an enormous miscalculation spinning Tuesday’s disasterous performance by Edwards against Cheney into a “win”.

Bush didn’t perform well last week. Bush’s people were honest enough to admit it, and graciously to give Kerry the nod on his style. (As partisans on the other side of the aisle, they couldn’t give him anything but an abject failure “F” for substance).

However, when Edwards was bested on style, substance, experience, manners, gravitas … the Kerry/Edwards people just wouldn’t have it. They twisted, distorted and outright LIED about the night. They tried pathetically to turn the subject to the accuracy of Cheney’s rememberances, and away from Edward’s lies, distortions, naivete and wrong-headedness about the vital issues facing this country.

Now, Kerry/Edwards handlers have squandered whatever credibility they and their candidate had established last week. And this morning, no one is listening to their case that Kerry “won” last night.

Fairly, they could make a better case for Kerry last night than Edwards last Tuesday.

However, Bush would have captured the night precisely had he spontaneously *yelled* at Kerry, “You can’t handle the truth! Just kidding, folks. I know I’m no Jack Nicholson. But, Senator Kerry, I think some one needs to tell you, you’re no Tom Cruise. And you look pretty ridiculous trying to play Tom Cruise. This isn’t a movie. This is the vital business of the nation. And the fact is, America has seen me and what I stand for. It is your campaign that’s trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people.”

query, I have referred the folks at SETI to you. They’re looking for life from another planet. Assuming that you are a life-form, you are certainly from another planet.

So far: Three debates; three losses for Cheney/Bush! Three clear wins Kerry/Edwards!

Charlie, you are in error. SETI is looking for extra-terrestrial *intelligence* — that’s what the “I” stands for.

And in case anyone is interested over there in the USA, the results so far in the Australian federal election (held Saturday, 9th October) have shown a decisive win (and increase in majority) for the incumbent government, led by Prime Minister John Howard. See http://vtr.aec.gov.au/ for the data, or any Australian newspaper for commentary.

TFBW, I’m sooo embarrassed to have, in my haste, made that error. To make amends, I made certain to carefully split these infinitives.

The only rational explanation for query’s apparent hallucinations is that he works for the Bush campaign. Their after-debate spinners didn’t even do as good a job of twisting reality as query.

Bush did much better than the first debate, but he still didn’t have answers for some questions, refused to answer others, and lost his cool a number of times before he finally calmed down about halfway through.

Shouting over a moderator until he lets you talk, even though you’ve already had *two* chances to respond? Berating audience members? Not very presidential.

Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell said it was one of Kerry’s worst debate performances ever, and a serious loss against Bush.

Matthews and Mitchell! Leading lights from the same camp as all you loonie left lapdogs of tech-phoney demagogue Dan Gillmor.

Spin that! All you’re doing is regurgitating McAulliffe. Pathetic and sad — the attitudes of losers.

Matthews on line poll says Kerry ran away with it Pres. Bush 37% vs Sen. Kerry with 63%.

A more scientic poll is likely Gallup calling it almost a draw with Kerry a couple of points ahead, but doing better with the independents.

Phil, you are uninformed and naive.

McAullife has stated quite plainly that (i) in coordination with the Kerry campaing, the DNC has withdrawn advertising spending for Kerry in as many as eight *former* states of contention and (ii) he personally authorized spending significant sums generating fake “grass roots” online poll responses taking the ridiculous line of the Democrats that their guys “win” no matter what the true outcomes. The instructions about how and where to “click” went out even before the debate!

Funny, though, that you can’t dispute the citation of Matthews and Mitchell, because if you were watching, you saw their blatant admission that Kerry blew it big-time.

I could quote hundreds of less far Left, centrist and Right commentators who’ve said the same thing.

But for Matthews and Mitchell, it’s *one* for Kerry, *two* for Bush/Cheney.

Back to my original point.

The Democrats aren’t willing to accurately self-score, not even within a *mile* of reality.

Why can’t Kerry and his pals admit, one for their guy, a draw for the second debate (you can at least argue *that* with a straight face, but not a Kerry victory), and as far as Edwards is concerned, who cares about Edwards? He’ll be a resident of the Executive Building, not the White House — as uninvolved in the day-to-day as Walter Mondale. So what if Edwards is no Dick Cheney?

But no, the spin meisters have jumped the railroad tracks, veering so far from reality they’re taking a big risk:

After Bush trounces Kerry next week, as the trend line suggests he will, who in the weeks following will even believe that Kerry won the *first* debate, as all his handlers are spinning so outlandishly about the awful performances that followed?

Only thing I can say about America’s election campaign is even if Kerry is now ahead by one, two, three points in the polls, it is still very possible that Bush wins the Electoral College without winning the popular vote. Bill Clinton did it and right now Bush has a fairly good lead in the electoral college. Well see.

Read it and weep folks.

Rasmussen at noon Eastern today:

“Saturday October 09, 2004–The latest Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll sho
ws President George W. Bush with 50% of the vote and Senator John Kerry with 46%. Today is the first time all year that either candidate has hit the 50% mark in our survey.”

Kerry has collapsed back to pre-first debate levels, and George Bush is at his highest poll ratings ever this year, as the undecideds have broken for him decisively.

BIG NEWS:

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1167782004

It was rigged! Sadaam had France in it’s pocket! I wonder if any French politicians will go to jail.

“Charles Duelfer, the CIA’s chief weapons hunter, recovered documents from the old Iraqi ministry of foreign affairs (MFA) and Saddam’s Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) showing that as early as May 2002, the Iraqi dictator received assurances that France would veto any US bid for UN military action against him.

The degree of intimacy that existed between Iraq and France may vindicate British and American leaders who believed that Jacques Chirac, the French president, was never open to arguments for removing Saddam.”

So it doesn’t mean that Bush is right to have gone in, but it does mean two things: 1) that the utopian concept of the UN isn’t really true because members act in their own interest, (especially when bribed!), and 2) that Kerry is wrong – either because he (and the Libs) are na