Edwards/Cheney tonight!!!

[koolking1]

Who's

gonna win? I'm betting Edwards will clean his clock. He better cause Cheney is the brain behind the scene.

[DrSmellThis]

It will be interesting.

Edwards has a slight edge stylistically, though Cheney comes across as more "alpha".

But this whole

administration is vulnerable right now, as the protective veneer of rhetoric, and good will from conservative folk

that they have been relying on, was only so thick. It's now wearing thin. They have been too cocky, which has

caused them to be just sloppy enough to make them vulnerable. Republican emotive strategies have been successful in

the short term. But as the campaign drags on, and the public is getting more seasoned with the campaign, things are

getting less favorable for them. Since the Democratic message isn't as simplistic, it has taken longer to grab

people, but is starting to a little. Now the Dems have an opportunity to apply a killer instinct and dominate. But

they need to win every single debate decisively to nail it. If they do, they'll win the

election, barring an October suprise or ballot cheating. The natural flow of the energy and cultural story will

be too strong in that direction. Otherwise all bets are off.

Edwards has a lot of hard work cut out for him

tonight, and will need to be sharply penetrating, relentless, and aggressive; while presenting a clear alternative.

Cheney is no dummy, and has been around the block. Kerry needs to be brutally well prepared himself for the next

one; and needs to do even better than he did in the last debate, which was supposedly playing to Republican

"strengths". People will be expecting him to win big, and he better deliver, as bad as the economy has been.

[metroman]

Should be interesting. Cheney

is a self admitted man of few words...consumate Washington behind the scenes operator. His rhetorical skills are

lacking but he has friends in all the right places.
Edwards is quite a good rhetorician. Before I heard him

speak, because of his photogenic looks, I was expecting an airhead Dan Quayle type but was quite surprised at how

bright he was. Very good command of the issues being discussed & quick on his feet.

Kerry/Edwards got a

nice bump in the polls after the presidential showdown. Lets hope they can keep it going...

[koolking1]

I have to admit, I am much

more excited/interested in this one tonight versus the #1 Bush-Kerry. I think we're gonna see some real fireworks

tonight, I sure hope so.

[a.k.a.]

For anybody that doesn’t know

Cheney, I’m sure he came off very well in the debate.
Edwards got a spanking over his Senatorial

attendance record. “His home town newspaper calls him Senator Gone.” “I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when

they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.”
Later

Edwards took a cheap shot at Cheney’s gay daughter which more or less backfired on him. Cheney didn’t even flinch,

and came off looking like a man of integrity.

Poor Edwards tried and tried to trip Cheney up on his record

with Halliburton but, for anybody that doesn’t know the facts, he came off looking like a shyster lawyer tossing up

a “smoke screen” (Cheney’s words) of spurious allegations.
For anybody that does know the record (

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/guide.htm ) Edwards merely seemed impotent and disorganized.


Even so, he was relentless, his criticisms were right on the mark and it’s all part of the public record. (No

conspiracy theories or vague allegations.) The ease with which Cheney brushed it all off was positively

chilling.

I’m sure a lot of Republicans are celebrating — or at least breathing a sigh of relief.

[a.k.a.]

Unbelievable!
Cheney suggested

viewers check his record on FactCheck.com. Probably meaning FactCheck.org Here's what FactCheck had to say

:

"Cheney wrongly implied that FactCheck had defended his tenure as CEO of Halliburton Co., and the vice

president even got our name wrong. He overstated matters when he said Edwards voted "for the war" and "to commit the

troops, to send them to war." He exaggerated the number of times Kerry has voted to raise taxes, and puffed up the

number of small business owners who would see a tax increase under Kerry's proposals.

Edwards falsely

claimed the administration "lobbied the Congress" to cut the combat pay of troops in Iraq, something the White House

never supported, and he used misleading numbers about

jobs."

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=272

[koolking1]

laughing, I didn't check

it myself but I heard that FactCheck.Com has a headline that says something like "we need to vote Bush out". I'm

sure a lot of Cheney supporters did go to that website and received quite a shock. Now, my only question is, was it

really a blunder? Yes, I am quite the cynic here.

[DrSmellThis]

I checked and got a "page not

available." The .org site is being flooded and slow to load.

Cheney came across as more intelligent, and debated

better with what he had to work with. Cheney also conducted himself in a more cool, confident, dignified, stately

manner. Edwards came across as more efficatious in speaking to the general public, and as having more to work with.

Cheney won the debate technically, therefore; but Edwards may have been more rhetorically effective in a larger

sense. Cheney's main problem was that, ultimately, the conduct of the war and the economy are indefensible (as is

Halliburton and the US's relationship to it), and Edwards could just keep calling attention to it, even in

logically sloppy ways. Edwards seemed nervous and self conscious, and his logical discipline and attentiveness were

disappointing. His replies often did not follow from what came previously. When he was able to wrap himself around

what Cheney said, he was extremely effective, but this happened too infrequently. Cheney was more often to the

point, in contrast. Edwards mannerisms were very annoying, as if he were posing, and reflected a certain immaturity

by comparison. And Cheney humiliated Edwards with the attendance thing, scoring nice "alpha" points.

To defeat

someone smart like Cheney, you have to pay close attention to what they are saying, and get underneath it and around

it to neutralize it. A good example would have been listening to Cheneys insistence that Iraqi security be counted

in figuring relative burdens among countries for reconstructing Iraq, and his statement that not doing so was

disrespectful to the courageous Iraqis. This is bullshit, of course. You don't count Iraq itself when enumerating

the coalition of countries assisting Iraq, in order to assess their relative burdens. Iraq's maximally

helping themselves is of course assumed prior to that assessment. Cheney wants to count Iraq itself in the numbers

of allies he and Bush have recruited to help Iraq?! How desperate and childish is that!? Those statements therefore

only support the damning criticisms of this administration's handling of war diplomacy. Yet these statements by

Cheney were nonetheless effective in the debate entirely because Edwards did not grasp the illogic of them;

to see and articulate what an irrelevant, emotionally manipulative, cheap shot they were.

Ultimately, I think

Edwards was partially absent mentally, thinking about prepared talking points; whereas he needed to be relaxed

enough to pay attention to Cheney carefully and think critically about it at the same time. He failed at this

despite his reputation for being good at it. Along these lines, I think debates would be better if there was a short

silent period, say 7-10 seconds for collecting thoughts, before one's time for talking started.

I liked

A.K.A's post, and found his "chilling" reaction interesting.

[koolking1]

I'd love to hear

Friendly1's take on Cheney's body language. DST: I'm not sure that Cheney won, technically. But it won't

matter much since the next debate is only 48 hours away.

[DrSmellThis]

I hope I am wrong about Cheney

winning the technical debate, though I did feel Edwards may have won in the larger game. I'm just calling it like I

saw it.

[Pancho1188]

I don't think you can call

the 'winner' of a debate between two well-educated professional public speakers...

The reason why I use that

particular description is because the ways to lose a debate hands-down would be to have no input on a subject and

get reamed or to screw up your delivery and be taken the wrong way. Coincidentally, I'm not a professional public

speaker...

That said, the 'winner' is very relative unless it was a landslide. For instance, one candidate

could have the best facts and the other could have the best delivery. One could look bad but make sound points and

the other look good but have a few blunders along the way.

People might like one candidate's argument but think

he was too aggressive. Another might just like the way he handled himself despite the fact that he was dodging

bullets the whole time.

The 'winner' (in my opinion) would be how many people are now going to vote for that

candidate instead of the other guy. At least that's all I'd care about. After all, that's why we're

debating in the first place. Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, etc. could probably take one of the current candidates in a

debate and still lose an election. Who's going to vote for them (well, I wanted to vote for Perot back in the

day)? In other words, who cares if one had a better argument if people still like the other better?

I guess

that's what you're referring to, Doc, in your last post. Even with sophisticated polls and experts, I don't

think you're going to find out the answers to any of this until November...and even then, who knows what would tip

the scale?

9/11?
Fahrenheit 9/11?
"Rock the Vote" and other voting campaigns (known to increase Democratic

voting)?
Presidential debates?
Vice Presidential debates?
War in Iraq?
Terrorist threats?
Foreign relations

with allies?
Nuclear threats?
Gay marriage?
The Patriot Act?
The Governator?
Saddam's capture?









.................................Osama's capture??? (I wonder what that would do)


Ugh. My head is

starting to spin.

[Holmes]

Cheney came

across as more intelligent, and debated better with what he had to work with.

He did indeed.

Ironically, he came across as more human.

Interesting, though, how Cheney never thanked Edwards at the

end of the program. And how he didn't even bother standing up to shake Edwards' hand. Cheap.

Still, an

interesting debate between Senator Edwards and the President.

[DrSmellThis]

http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/06/te

chnology/cheney_soros/index.htm?cnn=yes

[Pancho1188]

He did indeed.

Ironically, he came across as more human.

Interesting, though, how Cheney never thanked Edwards at the

end of the program. And how he didn't even bother standing up to shake Edwards' hand. Cheap.

Still, an

interesting debate between Senator Edwards and the President.

I'll show you cheap: Vice

President.

Seriously, though...would you shake a man's hand that made a debate a little too personal

(bringing your daughter into it)? No, it doesn't count when you bring your own into it ("I asked my

daughter Amy...")...

[koolking1]

"Still, an interesting

debate between Senator Edwards and the President" Holmes, you da man.

I told you guys "Let's Dump Bush and

Elect Cheney"

[Pancho1188]

I apologize Holmes...your

comment has been confirmed by a 'reputable source' - Michael Moore:

(From his letter regarding his charges of

bribing people to vote)

"P.S. My favorite moment of the VP debate: Cheney saying to the moderator that this was

the first he heard that that many black women in America had AIDS. Clueless. Cheney, for an entire 90-minutes, only

mentioned Bush's name -- that's his running mate, the "president" -- once. They should have called this the

"President (Cheney) -- Vice President (Edwards) Debate."