Throw in your comments while you are watching it and after its conclusion.

What do you think about ABC's breaking of the focus on the speaker rule?
or sometimes simply bending (dual screening)

CNN is breaking that rule as well....I did hear that the media never gave an agreement to abide by that rule.

I wish that they would require the candidates to stay on the issue of the question that was asked! Already when Bush was asked if America would be more likey to be attacke dif Kerry was President, his repsonse had nothing to do with the question asked.

Ok....third post in a row :) I am glad we are able to see each person's reaction to what is being said. I think it is very revealing.

agreed, I'm glad this rule was not followed, I am dissapointed at Bush's dancing around some of his rebuttles, he's a much better debater than this.

I think Kerry did an excellent job defending Bush's attacks on Kerry's "flip flopping". But Bush could have done a better job in following up on these attacks.

in a nutshell:
Bush: "Kerry is inconsitant, he says that Sadam is a threat that needs to be taken care of then turns around and opposes the war"
Kerry: "My opinion is consitant, I thought and still think that Sadaam is a threat that needs to be taken care of, I believe Bush went about it the wrong way"
Bush: "The only thing consitant about Kerry is his inconsitancy"

come on now...

I found it quite intresting that Bush said earlier in the debate that "of course we are looking for hussame (dont know how to spell it) ---i mean osama bin-laden". But I don't quote that cause thats not exactly the wording.

But I thought it was a very manly and nice gestor for Bush to say how much he appreicated and admired all the stuff Kerry did and his family and stuff. But like every question or responce was him saying that Kerry says one thing now and something else later. He said this OVER AND OVER!! and him saying what kind of a message to allies is this is a wrong war at the wrong time and wrong place.

And the reasons are because Kerry thinks this IS a wrong war but Bush already made the mistake of starting it so Kerry has to clean it up ..hes not just going to surrendor.

..anyways....

lol yeah =)

repetition is a pretty important tactic, Bush repeatedly pointed out Kerry's primary flaws and vice versa.

Yes, they both seem to be focused on saying the same things over and over and over and.....

I am impressed with Pres. Bush's improvement in his unrehearsed speech.

good call I was as well, although slipped a few times, made use of the "silence versus stutter"

Honestly, there are quite a bit of people already in Iraq that think the war was a mistake, and many of which are confused at what exactly they are fighting for. There are things I agree with Bush and Kerry, and things I don't agree on. I do agree that the way in which the war started was a mistake. Bush should have focused on the task at hand. However, now that we are already in this huge quagmire, Kerry supposedly thinks that he can get most of the troops out if not all of them in 6 months. That kind of scares me. If we just leave the country in shambles like that, it will just be taken over by either terrorists, or just be a country of desparate people, and that is dangerous. That happened to Germany in between the World Wars. I was kind of surprised to hear that the Bunker Busters were actually nuclear weapons themselves. This really surprised me in that this war was supposed to be stripping away nuclear threats, but now Bush is funding a program to implement nuclear weapons of possible regular use? And After Kerry made this arguement, Bush pretty much disregarded and changed the subject. He didn't address the fact that he did or didn't contridict the cause of the war. I thought that was particularly interesting.

Agree, Bush danced around alot of topics. This bugged me to no end.
Also noticed that Kerry through out alot of floating time frames without laying out concrete plans.

haha noobguy!

Bush: "The only thing consitant about Kerry is his inconsitancy"
i like that

I agree....neither one impressed me. And yea I liked that quote lol.

Bush repeated himself and avoided what Kerry said constantly, and Kerry never even said what his plans truely are. I'm not sure if his plans were even well thought out like he tries to portray himself; as this person who takes careful measures.

I believe Kerry won this particular debate.Kerry is a skilled debater as we've seen b4 and definitly showed this, had strong points and solid counters to Bush. Bush on the other hand piggybacked on his ability to say what the people want to hear. Unfortunately this often works...

I think Kerry did win also, but I have to admit that Bush had some good points about the diplomacy between North Korea, USA, and China.

agreed, eager to see the debate on economic policies

Yeah, me too

I think one thing Bush is very good at is saying what the masses want to hear. He is good as trying to come across like "everything is ok" and there is "nothing to get excited about." Luckily, that doesn't fool everyone.

Just pointing out that saying "everything is ok" and "nothing to be excited about" is important for any incumbent running for re-election to say. He has to show (at least say) that things are better than four years ago.

Yes, this you are right....but it doesn't mean that it is true :)

noobguy: "Bush on the other hand piggybacked on his ability to say what the people want to hear. Unfortunately this often works... "

Sorry Anthony, I should have been more clear, I was trying to re-inforce your statement with my aggreeance on Bush's ability to please.....although it does work for some, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there are more out there who can see through it.

Saying "Everything is ok" and so on, can also give the people the impression that he has control of the situation. Not necessarilly that in this point in time everything is fine, but rather we know he would have the capability of making the situation better, although this can be true or false...

I think the reason why Bush's saying what you want to hear works in this instance is because most of the informed have already formed their opinion and made their choice. Yes the debates are important and could sway peoples votes, but they are mainly targeted to the less informed that havent made up their mind. This is his intended audience.

Very true. The people who have already made up their mind (most of them) actually refuse to change their minds. I really haven't made up my mind. In a way, I don't like what bush is doing about the war, but at the same time it might be a bad thing if he is out of office in the middle of a war. And I don't think Kerry's plan for the war is practical at all. So I really don't know...

Through talking to people at after the debate, I have found that the people who seem to know the least about the candidates are the ones who did not watch the debates! It makes me worry about what will happen when these same people go to the polls to cast their vote without being educated on the candidates.
It's almost like the majority of the people I've spoken to who watched the debates are those who have already chosen their candidate and were just watching to see how that candidate would perform or how the other would mess up :)

Yea, I agree. Even though the debate is to try to sway, or make undecided people make a choice, it really doesn't seem to be working as well as it should. And yea, the majority of those who have seen it, are so rigid in their decision that the debate will not mean too much to them. And most of the people who aren't decided, didn't watch the debate. I'm still not decided, but that debate should help...

Well, I'm sorry those people didnt decide to watch the first debate. But there are alot of undecided people who did watch the debates. When Kerry and Bush speak, they are trying to convince their die hard supporters, or their opponents die hard supporters, they are trying to convince the ones watching who arent decided. They know very well who their target audience is. Public Speaking 101.

I'm not saying that they don't know who their target audience is, just that from what I've encountered so far, not too many of their target audience tuned in. I'm sure that's not true across the board, but it is what I've encountered in the past couple of days.

Yep. I'm one of those undecided's who watched the debate. But the same goes for me with the people I've also encountered. Many of them have already made up their minds before the debates, and just wanted to watch the opposing candidate to see if they would say anything that would be "stupid". However, they do not have control over the target audience. I don't really get what you mean't by Public Speaking 101, because they can say anything they want that might be really influential, but what good would it do if most of the target audience doesn't actually witness it? I suppose it would be in the papers...

by public speaking 101, I meant that when you are giving a speech one of the first rules of thumb is to keep your target audience in mind. You learn this on day 1 in any communications course. The same goes for writing papers as well, so I guess I could have put English 101.

oh lol. I am gonna hate my communications class.........