I think you guys are setting yourselves up for disappointment.

[Solomon]

I keep seeing all the gleeful threads about how bad Bush is gonna do tonight.

He can't possibly be any worse than he was the first time. Er go, he will win. He'll be all folksy and what not. There won't be any fireworks, people. He won't be shrill, or angry, or whatever.

He'll still be stupid. But that's what they love him for.

[trumad]

1. Jobs report, Iraq WMD report...

Oh yeah, he'll do great..:eyes:

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. I Don't Understand These DUers...

Bush will get his ass kicked...


Stand up straight, take the kick me sign off your ass, and be proud you're a Democrat...

[Teaser]

17. Lowering expectations for Kerry...

is a good thing.

Bush is going to win, btw.

[ClassWarrior]

21. Nope. Kerry will have his ass handed to him by master-debater...

...GW Bush*.

~wink~

23.

[BUSHOUT]

28. Yep, he'll be playing defense tonight. Stem cell issue will hit hard too.

Check out how stem cells ganged up on Bush in time for debates, including breaking news last night:

Stem cell issue is perfect storm crashing against Bush this week

[ALago1]

2. Nope. This weeks Iraq news & Job numbers will be hammered home

Kerry no doubt has a strategy to get this across to the American people and hammer Bush relentlessly. I think Kerry was actually pretty easy on the poor guy last time. I think you'll see another pummeling by Kerry tonight.

[montana500]

3. why are we cheerful?

I will tell you why:


When you put Kerry and Bush in the same room together, Kerry wins by DEFAULT. He acts and looks more presidential than Bush.

[Birthmark]

4. Solomon is wise.

I agree. Bush will be awarded the "win" whether he actually wins or not. It's a better story for the infotainment channels. And you are correct: It is almost impossible for him to do as badly as he did in the first so-called debate.

[unfrigginreal]

5. Bush needs more than a win tonight

but you're right, as another DUer said "If he doesn't shit his pants, he wins." But that won't be enough to change the momentum. He needs a grand slam tonight.

[Dem2theMax]

6. I can only speak for myself, but at least for today

I'm gonna look forward to tonight. If it goes bad, it goes bad.
But I kinda doubt it with all the news in the past two days.
I honestly don't know how he can hold his temper in tonight. I'll be amazed if he does.

[wellstone_democrat]

7. all he has to do at this point

is that "folksy" bullshit and not repeat the mumbling, slouching, incomprehensible shit of last week. The interviews I've seen and read for the last week with every sort of "pundit" more or less says that: the WH has what it wants going into tonight---the bar is low, low, low for Bushbot*

If he doesn't duplicate last week or start screaming obscenities, they will claim he "redeemed" himself or that the "real George Bush*" showed up tonight....

He's a tool but he's their tool

[LosinIt]

8. I think he knows how bad he fucked up last week and will be nervous

as hell. No amount of coaching can fix that. Some good pharmaceuticals on the other hand......

[giant_robot]

35. Exactly

Not even Karl Rove can turn the bumbling, surly asshat we saw last week into an eloquent debater in eight days. Expect the same soundbite answers and non-sequiturs from Dubya.

BTW, I know that lowering expectations is good, but who's expectations are we lowering? Fellow DU'ers and and a few freep lurkers? I don't think lowering expectations in these forums does much good. I'd much rather cling to my enthusiasm, IMHO.

[earthside]

9. Probably ...

That's probably close to what will happen tonight. Bush can have real personal control when he absolutely has to.

But I think he will be so concentrated on keeping a straight face that his answers will be flat. He'll trot out his new/old attack lines, he'll smile a lot, try the 'aw shucks' schtick ...

Kerry will be presidential, crisp, repectful, but very approachable for the audience.

Bush will not implode.
Kerry will shine.

Kerry will be the winner, but more for his steadiness and intellect than because Bush crashes.

[Ripley]

10. No. His fakey folksy pretend southern accent will

only make him look even more superficial, shallow, deceptive and less presidential than Kerry.

I hope he rolls up his sleeves, wears cowboy boots and pronounces words stupidly. It will only make Kerry shine like a beacon on the other side of the room when he speaks intelligently, knowledgeably and in the same way he always speaks.

We'll see Smirky's one of many "other" faces. Who wants a schizoid Prez?

[cali]

12. I agree

Despite all the bad news for bush, Kerry's got his work cut out for him. He really needs to hammer the twerp, albeit in a manner that doesn't come across as being mean spirited. There are a lot of words and phrases I want to hear from him tonight. When stem cell research comes up he should make the point that many IVF embryos are disposed of each year, does that mean we should ban IVF? He should work in the word corrupt. He should use Edward's the earth is not flat line. I think Kerry does have an opportunity tonight. There's a lot of ammunition. Unfortunately, the soft bigotry of low expectations- yes we're back to that- works in bushboy's favor.

[October]

13. I'm anything but gleeful --

He'll be Mr. Congeniality tonight. All positive spin and optimism...slamming Kerry for being negative, etc.

Plus, after his disastrous performance last week, all Bush needs to do is just show up, and the media whores will sing his praises.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

14. Imagine how many people truly believe every word that comes

out of Cheney's mouth.... who went to www.factcheck.com only to find their worst nightmare. Real truth for real thinking people. I think that has done as much as anything to screw shrubs chance for reselection....

[Warpy]

15. SOME love him because he's so stupid they can relate to him.

However, since we've all been hurt by his stupidity, that fratboy charm may be wearing a bit thin for even his most moronic suppporters.

Bush will stammer and stutter and mug at the audience to try to cover his utter ineptitude. The audience is handpicked, and may respond more positively than an honest audience would. It doesn't matter if Kerry completely destroys a Bush talking point. The utterance of talking points and buzzwords mean Bush "won" to the faithful. The questions have all been presubmitted, and Dimwit will have all the help they can sneak in. Expect the pundits to call it a draw.

The only way to counter this is that if you run into one of these dolts, mention that you're hiring the guy to do a JOB, not show up at a party. Tell them that when you tap a keg, Bush is your man. When you you need somebody to clean up the mess in the economy and in Iraq, he's the guy who MADE THE MESSES, so it's time for somebody else.

We can all do this, folks, and the stakes are high enough that we have to.

[Solomon]

16. Hey. I'm just as excited as everybody else. It's like getting ready to

watch a heavyweight title fight. But what gets me is, they spin a poll bounce for whatever stupid does. And for the first time in history, the other guy, no matter how well he does, gets "negative" bounces. What the f*** is a "negative" bounce? Just when you thought they exceeded all bounds, they come up with something new.

Is it me or is it true that every damn tv station, and radio station are working directly for Bush? I'm so tired of turning on my radio to hear assholes talking about what Bush needs to do to win. Are they on his payroll?

The problem I see is that in a title fight, if you knock the bum out, there's no arguments. But when it goes to a decision, people make what they want out of it.

There ain't gonna be no knockout tonight, unless Kerry walks over and slugs him one right in front of the camera. Ain't gonna happen.

[July]

34. But let's not confuse the pundit's call with the people's.

Remember that after the last debate the people saw a clear Kerry win, while the media tried hard to make it a draw or barely a Kerry win.

[Mr.Green93]

18. the jobs report

changed everthing. It is over for bush.

[Union Thug]

19. Remember, Bush is the master debater with only one loss scored

...against him in all his years of debating. Kerry should be afraid. Bushie was all tuckered out last week from all that hurricanin' and staying up past his beddie-bye time.

Be warned.

[sonicx]

20. My expectations are that it will be a DRAW

or at least i try to think that way. :)

[ejcastellanos]

22. Hopeful but concerned

I recall the 2000 debates and I think Gore hammered it to Bush much more decisively in the first debate than Kerry did. Then the press called Gore 'mean-spirited' and too forceful so he backed off and Bush did much better in the debates. I hope Kerry doesn't repeat that mistake. Kerry needs to keep Bush on the ropes and keep it up till he falls. If Bush is so tough he'll be able to handle it. Let's see him flip flop himself out of that. Prove that he is not the tough macho cowboy he pretends to be and make him go crying to Cheney about how mean John Kerry was to him.

After speaking with a Bush fan last night about the VP debates I could have sworn we watched two entirely different debates. He said all Edwards said was 'Haliburton, Haliburton' and that he looked more nervous. Obviously we are viewing the debates through different filters, but it was educational.

[Union Thug]

27. agreed... beat him into the earth...

You can't be too hard on Bushie. The undecideds want to see a strong and forceful leader, so Kerry should give Bushie a dose of the old shock and awe and keep pounding him until Bushie screams uncle.

No compassionatin', no quarter.

[MsTryska]

23. look.....we KNOW Kerry will do good.

but it's the new material to clown on dubya with that i'm anticipating.

[ikojo]

24. I agree...this is a ST LOUIS audience so even the Dems are more

conservative than Dems in other parts of the country. W will come across all folksy, probably say something like, "how 'bout them Cards!" and the audience will be in his hands. There is no way Kerry will top a down home reference to the Cardinals if he is not the first to speak. I cannot imagine Kerry saying "how 'bout them Cards!"

St Louis LOVES the Cardinals and sports in general. Last night while attending the Tim Russert whoring at Powell Hall, the Cardinals game score was announced three times during the evening.

[missjudy6]

29. He's not playing to the St Louis crowd

it's a national audience

[m_welby]

25. not going to do it

no one here (i dont think) is going to misunderestimate *. Certainly Kerry won't.

Certainly the media will spin for * if possible, but alot of that is up to us - we need to be on top of the online polling just like the last 2 debates, and we need to be ready to LTTE them until they can't spin it *'s way.

I am less worried about tonight than I was about the VP debate, Kerry will probably do just fine, and shrub will do better than last time (he certainly can't do worse).

But again, we need to hit the media so hard that that it spins our way instead of allowing the lunatic right to control the media spin.

[phish420]

26. Thats what people said about the 1st debate....nt

[blueknight]

30. going against a master debater,

and some one with immpeccable oratory skills, kerry has no chance.

[ScreamingMeemie]

31. I don't know. I think it is impossible at this point for him to hold up

well under any kind of scrutiny. He was quite odd acting here in MI this week...then there's the whole WMD thing, about which he can only say that he still stands by his decision. Now let us think about what Kerry said that really hit home for a lot of people. You can have convictions that are wrong. Bush is wrong. The guy is limping. I'm still optimistic for tonight.This man has never and will never look "presidential". 9/11 did not happen last week, we are not bound together willing to swallow anything anymore. :hi:

[npincus]

32. I think so, too.... I won't relax until it's over

[Solomon]

33. Needless to say. I'm still putting a tape in the vcr. You never know

when Bush might actually explode. We been expecting it for so long.

I truly hope he does what his minions want him to do. That is point to Kerry being absent from the Senate so much. An open door to a retort that he was not absent when it counted, i.e. fighting for his country. Let's see Bush awol that.

Still. Kerry and Edwards so exceeded expectations in their first debates that I have a feeling tonight is gonna be anti-climatic.

[JerseygirlCT]

36. I do think it will be tougher this go round -m

I'm not feeling at all cocky about it.

After his horrific performance last time, expectations are once again in the basement for Bush. So he doesn't need to do much -- maybe just get one articulate sentence out -- in order to exceed those expectations.

Kerry on the other hand, has to exceed his last performance -- which was pretty amazingly good. It won't be easy!

[Shadow30]

37. Bush will start strong tonight however....

..that doesn't mean he will win.The first presidential debate and the VP debate didn't go well for Bush and company,he needs a knock out punch or he will be seen as a loser.I really doubt George will do so well.Kerry can still screw Georgie up,if Kerry keeps his cool,is ready for some tough attcks from Bush and keeps Bush off balance Bush will mess up.Chimpy odds are has been working hard to improvehis debating skills(but hey what the hell being president is hard work right!) but a week isn't enough to change who Bush is at his core,a poor public speaker.If Kerry keeps him off balance and hits him on every point Bush will fumble,stutter and start making mistakes,Kerry just needs to be patient,to hold his own and that newly devopled facade of Bush's will start to crumble.The media will do there spin job of course but remember alot of polls show the spin hasn't been all that effective,most of the media have been working for Bush the whole time and Bush is not winning in a landslide,if Bush screws this up the people will know.If all goes well the media will at best be able to spin this into a draw but thats not good enough for Bush,things will get worse for him,Bush needs a big win tonight and that will be VERY hard for him to pull off.

[David Dunham]

38. If Bush does better, Kerry will do even better.