Joshua Marshall on CSPAN: "It's a draw"

[newsguyatl]

Gee, aren't you glad we have these "liberal" bloggers speaking out on tv tonight :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:


meanwhile, his opponent from the weekly standard says bush won "hands down."


thanks joshua, nice job :eyes:

[ant]

1. I agree with him

If a freeper last week had said Bush won the first debate, you would've rightly called him delusional. This was not a knock out punch for either candidate, and if you read the latest entry on TPM I think it's well reasoned and makes sense.

Don't be blind to reality, and don't try to spin what happened into a story that fits what you want to believe.

[Boomer]

10. I say it's a draw, too

>> This was not a knock out punch for either candidate <<

They both delivered performances that appeal to their very different constituencies. Unlike last debate, when Bush looked bad to nearly everyone, this time he was in true Bush form -- the arrogant swaggering good ole boy persona that appeals to large segments of the American populace. So he just looked bad to all of us who always thought he looked bad.

I was hoping he would fall on his face across party lines. No such luck this time.

[indie_voter]

38. The problem is expectation in reverse

Our side expected Bush to behave the same way he did last time. Unrealistic.

Substance wise he did worse, stylistically better.

Sadly both sides view style over substance.

[Chovexani]

40. I dont frelling understand this

How the hell can anyone say * performed better, even stylistically?! The man practically blew his top several times.

I think he did WORSE than last time, honestly. I can't see how anyone can call this a draw. Kerry beat him like a redheaded stepchild.

(No offense to redheaded stepchildren :P)

[indie_voter]

44. He didn't roll his eyes

Or grimmace, so the sheeple are happy. He yelled like a loon, but that appeals to some. Don't ask me why. Me, I thought he was abysmal, worse than before.

[tblue37]

62. I wear hearing aids and also used closed captioning,

and I watch TV with the volume turned way up. But when Bush was speaking, I had to keep lowering the volume on the TV, because with my hearing aids in, his shouting was actually painful to me.

When you adjust the volume on a closed-captioned TV, during the brief time you are making the adjustment the closed captioning doesn't work. The fact that I had to keep "disappearing" my closed captioning to turn Bush down and then to turn Kerry back up made the fact of Bush's shouting very noticeable to me, but I was wondering whether anyone else noticed, or whether my own awareness of it was just an effect of having to constantly mess with my volume and thus lose my closed captioning for a few seconds each time.

[Protagoras]

45. True, we have two entirely different standards working

Kerry is expected to look like friggin Superman to be called a winner.

Bush has to stop picking his now while he stares into the camera in order to be declaired the winner.

What is it Bush says about the bigotry of low expectations? Yeah I think he learned that from experience.

The debates have clarified one thing to me though (even though they didn't decide who I was going to vote for). Namely...I WANT MY PRESIDENT TO BE SMARTER THAN I AM! And anyone who would apply that standard to Bush has had most of their grey matter leak out their ears.

[are_we_united_yet]

24. The only way you

can call this a draw is because the expectation for W is just very very low.

He did not seem able or willing to control his anger, he didn't have any new or credible insights for the problems facing the country, he didn't have very many accomplishments to tout and he didn't perform particularly well. He still won't admit to any mistakes and continues to blame his appointements.

We call it a draw because expectations are high for Kerry (he must pummel * to have won) and low for W (he needs to show up and not make any cataclysmic gaffs).

[ant]

52. I think that's probably true

No doubt the expectations for Bush were low, and I think he's a lousy president and overall human being so obviously I didn't think much of his performance. But again, this isn't about Bush or Kerry supporters, it's about how the debates play out to the undecided voters, and if you knew nothing about either candidate before 9 pm tonight then I don't think you left this debate with any reason to strongly prefer either one. I can totally see now why it boils down to who you just get a better vibe from, who you intuitively trust more, and I think each candidate can have a certain appeal to certain people.

[are_we_united_yet]

58. This is also true.

But is sad and disheartening that there can still be undecided voters. The substance of the debate should be the issue not vibes you get. The past performance should be an indicator of competency not the excuses why it could have been worse. If you ask this President why is the Patriot Act diluting my Civil Liberties he responds by saying, "I don't think they are." This just is not substantive material.

This administrations record has been nothing short of dismal on just about every major policy.

It is almost incomprehensible that people judge who "won" or "lost" on a vibe or the likeability of a candidate.

[Eric J in MN]

29. Who seemd more knowledgable? Who seemed better able

to manage foreign policy? I say Kerry, and Kerry won.

[ant]

48. problem is

You would've said that BEFORE the debate. You believed Kerry was the better candidate going into the debate and so obviously he came across as the better candidate.

All I'm saying is that if you look at this from the POV of an undecided voter, which is really all that matters, it was a draw. Bush supporters aren't going to go for Kerry, and Kerry voters aren't going to switch to Bush. What matters is the mindless middle, and to them this debate was likely a draw. I do think Bush had more bad moments than Kerry did, and I do think Kerry had more good moments than Bush, but it's the overall impression that matters. Unless there's endless media harping on a particular moment, it won't have much of an impact.

[ibegurpard]

56. This phrase of yours caught my eye:

"Unless there's endless media harping on a particular moment, it won't have much of an impact."
And why would the media harp about something when the supposed "spokespeople" for the Democratic point of view concede the debate? It's not as if Kerry fucked it up beyond belief and they're credibility is on the line to cheer him on.
Your perception might be correct but in an instance like this it is all the more imperative to have STRONG people trying to influence the point of view. Why do you think Republicans do it? Because it's effective!

[ant]

64. did he not do that?

This whole discussion is based on ONE thing Marshall said - that it was a draw. It does not address all the other points he made, especially those regarding the president's inability to admit mistakes, which he specifically noted was an opening for the Dems in the post-debate spin. He's made those comments on his blog in the same post where he called it a draw, and while I didn't see his appearance on C-SPAN I would assume he didn't just get up there, say "it was a draw," and walk away. My guess is he gave a longer analysis that paralleled the entry on his blog.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

34. Maybe you should take your own advice and stop spinning yourself....

...did you miss all of the times FratBoy lost his cool? How about when he yelled at Gibson?

Which of the two candidates had a better command of the facts on ALL of the issues? If you tell me it was FratBoy, or that they sounded about equal to you, I'm going to have to ask you what debate you thought you were watching tonight.

Incredible.

[ant]

42. get real

I'm just being honest. I'm not going to rah-rah for Kerry just because I *wish* this had been a knock out. It very clearly wasn't. At least not the way the first debate was.

Kerry strikes me as having a better command of the facts, but I am a Kerry supporter who follows politics pretty closely, so I tend to know who's lying when. I will say that I don't follow domestic issues that closely, and on those issues, as I said in another post, I can see how a voter would be confused. Bush says one thing, Kerry says another - if you don't already know that Bush is a lying sack of shit, I can see how you would be undecided. You just don't know who to believe. That may not be what you want to hear, but it's the truth.

And yes, Bush was loud and aggressive AT FIRST, but he calmed down by the end. This was not the train wreck that we saw in the first debate, and clinging to the mistakes of the first debate won't work here.

Neither candidate was perfect, but neither really stood out UNLESS you already just really support one over the other. Like I said, basically a draw. And like TPM said, given the situation going into this debate, I think that's good for Kerry.

[cheezus]

37. pre-spin each time, i came up with the opposite

the first debate, i thought kerry was okay, and bush was okay (kerry did better, but no biggie). I expected the media to call it a Bush win, draw at best

after this debte, pre spin: Bush did marginally better (didn't have the idiot moments, but still looked petulant). Kerry did MUCH better; actually opened the can of whoopass. Bush could do nothing but blame Kerry and others for his own failures.

[Cha]

2. And jonah goldberg said

Kerry won...

[grasswire]

3. yeah.....

...Marshall isn't always fully savvy. He gets snookered sometimes.

[Gabi Hayes]

7. amen....I started a thread on this, and could NOT believe

he said that

he did NOT mention the most important parts, which the MEDIA HOES aren't either: the parts where he LOST it!

the Dean moment

the other ones, where he looked angry, unpresidential

anybody surprised about that?

they KNOW the impressions made are what matter: last time they all said, grudgingly, that Kerry won the style battle, and will NOT allow this meme to spread this time, as it's curtains for Bush if people are allowed to believe their own lying eyes

right?

[w4rma]

4. Our side sucks at PR. We're getting better, but not in this case. (nt)

[Kinkistyle]

5. He explains on his blog that a draw favors KERRY

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

Kerry has the momentum on his side, and expectations for Bush are super low. Plus after-debate spin determines EVERYTHING. So in other words, he is putting his handicap for Bush into his scoring.

[Capn Sunshine]

6. I love Josh Marshall but..

he has severe myopia from living inside the beltway. I thought the edge clearly went to Kerry. Face it , look who his opponent was. Could the bar be any lower and he still comes off whining like a baby.

[newsguyatl]

8. i know right!!!

i mean, jesus christ people!!


this is the leader of the free world YELLING on stage, losing his temper, unable to make fluid sentences or thoughts and you say it's a freakin' DRAW?!?

and what's more you're a LIBERAL writer/blogger?!?

c'mon.

[Kinkistyle]

11. He's centrist.

He's a self-acclaimed centrist who supported the Iraqi Invasion. He is just eating crow now and pounding on Bush admin for being idiots but he is still a centrist of the Paul Begala/Stephanopoulos variety.

[newsguyatl]

15. oh really?

he supported the war?


i didn't know that.


i've lost tons of respect for him now.


no need to keep hitting his site then either.

[Kinkistyle]

18. Yep read the archives.

Supported invasion with broad-based U.N. support. Didn't support unilateral invasion, and that is what ultimately turned Marshall over to our side because the Neo-cons screwed up big-time.

[Cha]

25. I wrote him a letter once...

cause he was bad mouthing Dean!

[Rose Siding]

16. The beltway dems are living in a pre-bush world

I saw Bush just as you did. You start to doubt your own eyes when the pundits IGNORE an episode of the one we saw in the first half of that debate.

I KNOW I saw Kerry looking concerned about Bush's behavior.

[Boomer]

23. You're operating under the assumption...

...that yelling and losing your temper are considered faults by all people.

Unfortunately, a good number of people applaud this tetchy aspect of Bush's personality. They were more upset when he appeared hesitant and nervous during last debate. But arrogant bullying is okay.

By my standards, Bush lost the debate, because I value reasoned and rational arguments, backed up by facts and delivered in an articulate and sober manner. That doesn't impress everyone though. Many much prefer Bush's swagger to Kerry's urbanity.

So I think it was a draw because each man delivered a good performance in their own style. They aren't going to change any minds over this one.

[Cha]

46. If Kerry would have done that...it would

have been looked at as a FAULT!

[qanda]

27. Exactly right...

Where's your blog? You should start your own so that we have somewhere to go and hear the very things you're saying. I love reading your posts, they are always spot on!

[bain_sidhe]

9. I have to agree too...

as a partisan Kerry supporter who's been following all this closely, I could see all the bu**sh** lies and I know the truth behind Kerry's assertions. But to Mr. and Ms. Public who *haven't* been reading three newspapers, six blogs and dozens of posts here on DU every day yeah, it was probably a draw. At least in the sense that bu**sh** didn't lose any more support, probably didn't gain much either... and while I'm pretty sure Kerry didn't lose any support, I also don't think he had the kind of knock-out punch that will make a measurable difference in the polls. So, yeah, in that sense it was a draw.

[bush equals idiot]

12. I don't concur.

And I think it will show in the undecideds. Kerry was much more passionate personal and detailed. He also drove home the points of his sorry record.

Watch and see.

[realFedUp]

13. Kerry was presidential tonight....Bush was a hick

It's embarrassing to have Bush talk
like he just stepped out of the cornpatch,
no offense to those who live in cornpatches.
But this guy was raised in Prep Schools forgodsakes
and went to Yale and Harvard. Please!

[bloom]

14. Do some of these people just want to look "fair & balanced"?

Seems like some of Republican shills will sound balanced or even lean towards Dems the night of __ and then the next day - say the opposite.

[Democat]

17. It's a stupid thing to say - everything is won or lost on appearances!

The reality is created by the media and when Marshall is on TV he is part of the media. He needs to understand that he is not reporting the news, he is creating it. When he says it's a tie and the other guy says Bush won, then Bush wins because no one is on Kerry's side.

This is a war for America's future and it's not time to be afraid to take sides and fight every chance you've got.

[newsguyatl]

21. exactly

[TheWebHead]

19. from a non-partisan prospective it looks about right

the flash ABC News poll had Kerry up 3%, but was overweighted w/ Democrats by 3%. * benefitted from the perception he improved from last week, and cut out much of the stuttering and repetition. That was the buzz beforehand, the bashing of his previous performance would make it difficult to have Kerry a clear winner since *'s expectations were lowered.

[LynnTheDem]

20. If you DON'T COUNT all bush's LIES as LIES....

Then I suppose one could say it was a draw.

But then, I think LIES should be counted as ...well...as LIES.

[Boomer]

28. Silly you

Bush has been lying through his teeth for decades and it's never hurt him. No reason to think a tried-and-true technique is going to fail him now.

America has devolved to battling personas, where performance flair counts for as much (if not more) than substance. Last debate, Bush fell down on performance by appearing hesitant and nervous. Tonight he was cocky and smug, his trademark attitude. He may not have won over any new voters, but I dare say he didn't lose any either.

[Bread and Circus]

22. Well then he's an idiot....

or a sellout.

[jdonaldball]

26. BULLSHIT! Kerry wiped the floor with Bush's face.

[SeanQ]

30. Kerry won...

... but it was closer than last time. Kerry wasn't quite as on top of his game tonight - missed some opportunities to drive killing blows home. ANd Bush managed to not quite fall apart - not a good performance but not nearly as embarasing as last week.

[unfrigginreal]

31. Same friggin thing with Bob Kerrey on MSNBC

he goes on with Pataki who calls it a homerun for Bush and Kerrey says it was a draw. We never never never freakin learn.

[newsguyatl]

33. these are the same types of people

who thought the war was a good idea at the time too :eyes:


so god knows, we must trust their judgment now :eyes:

[Democat]

43. Fucking stupid - these people are making the news, they need to realize!

They think they are reporting their opinions, but they are really making the news.

If Democrats keep saying that Kerry didn't win, then the media will feel very confident in saying that Bush did win.

They think they are reporting news when they are really making news.

When will the idiots on our side learn?

The right wing understands how the game works, too many on our side do not.

You don't go on the TV at this point in the election for any other reason than to help Kerry. That's it, it's very simple! If you aren't planning to help Kerry, then do not go on TV.

[Cha]

47. pataki sucks and kerrey sounds

lazy.

[qanda]

32. Kick

:kick:

[LVdem]

35. BUSH WON???

Maybe in the arm flailing category...

[andym]

36. This debate is not decisive

Kerry won on the issues and was more presidential. It will help close the sale for undecided who had been leaning his way-- he showed great command of the issues and was personable yet aggressive in his attacks on Bush.

Room for improvement: Needs to spend even more time on his positive vision for America. Also needs to really slam Bush on the never being wrong about big issues: The basic argument should be if my opponent (Bush) refuses to acknowledge the mistakes he'll never be able to fix them. I will.


Bush did better than the last debate in two ways. First, he actually mentioned some details, like the names of federal programs, and seemed to know some "facts", however false they may be. This will counter the idea that he is a total moron completely out of the loop, which will stop the bleeding among undecideds who were starting to think that he is completely incompetent (though he may very well be). Stylistically he was very aggressive which plays well with unthinking macho types, alot better than the confused performance last week. No room for improvement-- he just can't do any better than this.


Overall good news for Kerry, because it raises the bar on Bush for the last debate. Bush will again be overconfident, Kerry should be able to clean up.

[gauguin57]

39. George W. Bush did not look presidential on that stage tonight.

Say he stayed on message, say he stuck to his guns, whatever... but he did not look presidential. He looked like someone's drunk uncle, talking louder and louder as the evening goes along, at Thanksgiving dinner when someone starts talking politics.

[sonicx]

41. he's fucking insane.

just like Bush was tonite.

[pmbryant]

49. Marshall, normally a clear thinker, is muddled on this one

Kerry clearly won. There were only a couple of questions where Bush even looked to be in the same league.

As I recall, Marshall was very cautious in declaring a victory for Kerry in debate #1. Which, of course, was a rout.

Marshall needs to be less afraid of his own verdict about these debates, I think.

--Peter

[Democat]

54. If they aren't helping Kerry, they're fucking up

Why go on a show at all unless you plan on helping Kerry win at this late point in the campaign?

We only have a few weeks left, we need to do everything we can to get every vote we can.

If they want to help Bush they can do it after the election - it's time to help Kerry win!

[secular_warrior]

50. I agree - it was a draw - there will be no major change in the race

It was clearly a draw. I watched the debates intently, took notes and decided it was a tie before I turned on the pundits (as I always do). The post-debate polls all are showing basically a tie, with maybe a small edge for Kerry.

Both candidates came out hitting hard, and both made very good points. Bush was much better than last time. Kerry was excellent as usual, but I thought he dropped the ball somewhat on some of the domestic issues where I thought he should've really clobbered Bush. Kerry's answers on stem cell in particular wasn't as compelling as I thought it should be.

Kerry's challenge is not simply to show Bush has failed, but to convince the voters to come over to his side by laying out clear plans. I thought he did this better in the first debate. He was good tonight, but I thought he should've answered some of the questions more directly with what he would do, instead of what Bush is doing wrong.

This debate won't change the race. Kerry must beat Bush in the last debate (and I think he will) if he wants to take a lead in the polls, IMO.

[helpisontheway]

51. Bob Kerrey said it was a tie too!

nt

[ibegurpard]

53. We must above all be fair and impartial

Even if it means slitting our own throats.
It would be one thing to claim that Kerry won if he had bungled it beyond the point of spin. It's quite another to suck it up and say "Rah, Rah" when he was competent and cool under pressure and Bush was perhaps marginally better than the other night.
No wonder Democrats can't get their fucking act together.

[Democat]

55. They don't seem to understand that they are making news by doing this

There is a problem with our side, we don't seem to understand how it works.

The right wing does not buy media companies to report news. They don't get their talking heads on all of the channels to report news. They don't give the Swift Liars airtime to report news. They do it all to make news.

Marshall and Kerrey don't seem to understand that they are deciding what the news is, making the news, when they speak in the media.

They make the reality and the reality they are making is worse for Kerry and better for Bush. It's their choice to help Kerry win the debate or to help Bush win the debate and when they refuse to support Kerry they are helping Bush.

It's too close to the election to be that stupid.

[ibegurpard]

57. you are correct, I believe.

Here's how I see it:
Did Kerry do a decent job? I think he did. As a matter of fact, I believe he did a better job than Gore did in 2000. So, if you don't want Bush to win, why is it so difficult to swallow the "impartiality" and engage in a little spin yourself?

[sundancekid]

63. my sentiments exactly ... even if we were to give them the notion

of reinflating expectations for chimp in debate #3, they could have done that by stating that chimp did better than debate #1, and we could then pick up on that "improvement" theme to raise those debate #3 bars ...

even by forensic standards of the minimum type, Kerry WON. Period. "Draw" -- my uncle fred's fanny.

[feistydem]

59. I respect Marshall's opinions. He's not a butt kisser --not even ours.

Here's his piece on the debate on www.talkingpointsmemo.com

He writes that because it was "draw" Kerry actually will come out ahead. I agree with that.

<clipped>

(October 08, 2004 -- 10:43 PM EDT)
Having listened to the whole thing very carefully, I thought it was basically a draw.

President Bush was certainly more coherent and on-his-feet than he was a week ago. But then, that's a pretty low standard. I think the president's advisors will be happy that he hit Kerry several times with the 'most liberal Senator' line. As NewDonkey noted a couple days ago, that's BC04's new pivot: liberal, liberal, liberal. I also thought there were opportunities to wallop the president that Kerry didn't take. The president showed moments of temper and irritability, but nothing that bad. Having said all that though I didn't think either candidate made any serious errors. And both did a reasonably good job pushing the issues their campaigns wanted them to push.

If I'm right and this was basically a draw, I think that represents a victory for Kerry for two reasons.

First, momentum seems clearly to be on Kerry's side. The president needed to arrest that momentum and I don't think he did.

The other reason turns on something I said last week. The basis of President Bush's resurgence in late August and September was based less on confidence in him than in his campaign's effective effort to portray Kerry as not an acceptable commander-in-chief. Kerry's strong performance in the first debate undermined that impression and knocked the race back to parity. I don't think anything happened in this debate to change that.

What I do think you'll have from this debate is some steadying of the president's supporters. Even the president's most die-hard supporters were knocked for a loop by his stammering and wobbly performance last week. After seeing this performance I think they'll feel like they saw the candidate they expected. And that will steady them and buoy their morale.

Now, as I've said from the beginning, what matters in these debates is less the 90 minute encounter than the spin war that unfolds after it ends. That's even more so with this one since on a Friday night (and given it's the second debate) the viewership will be down. That means the impressions voters take from this one will be even more determined by the post-debate chatter.

And on this I think the president and the last questioner gave the Democrats a real opportunity. The fiscal health of the country is a wreck. The country faces an unfolding disaster in Iraq. And numerous examples emerge day after day showing how that disaster grew directly from bad decisions the president made. And faced with a questioner who asked for just three mistakes he thinks he's made over four years, he couldn't come up with one. His answer was to say that on each of the big issues he's gotten everything exactly right.

If the Democrats and the Kerry campaign are smart they can use that to cut right to the president's greatest vulnerability -- the sense that he's out of touch, won't face what's happening and more than anything else won't level with the American people.

This is the line for the Dems to hit again and again. Seeing all we see on our TVs, he can't think of one wrong decision? He won't level with the public. And if he can't think of one thing he's gotten wrong, reelecting him means four years of more of the same.

-- Josh Marshall

[kentuck]

60. I admire Josh a lot but....

he's wrong on this one. Kerry won hands down. Just because Bush was not lying prostrate on the stage doesn't mean he won or that it was a draw.

[feistydem]

61. I take a "draw" to mean "no one really benefitted"

Not who won on the merits of their argument.

It's possible the political spin and what the media gloms onto will end up making the final decision on who benefits. If they play Bush's charge at the moderator over and over, it could become his Dean scream. Many people will only see the clip played on the evening news.

As of this moment I don't think either of them did much more than shore up their bases with tonight's performance.

[realFedUp]

65. The expectations are so much lower for Bush

He gets away with being able to speak
sentences for half of the 90 minutes.

[sistersofmercy]

66. I agree with him. Of course bush* showed what a foot stumping baby

he is and of course he is so inferior intellectually to Kerry it's astounding but last night's format was very suitable to bush*. He got to use his rooster posturing and it worked. Nobody expects bush* to be able to compete intellectually with Kerry, he can't and everyone knows it. It was a draw.

[ladybugg33]

67. A President in an obvious state of frenzy and it's a "tie?"

I just don't get it. What does this country want, a complete and total mental breakdown? Besides corruption, insanity plagues this administration like fungus in athletic feet.

[deckerd]

68. Dems who do not understand expectations management are not going to

know how to spin an expectations-based victory into a substantive or
stylistic defeat for President Bush. If anything, Bush will lose on
style, not substance -- endless repetitions of a finite number of
gaffes made by the president last night. I don't see that happening
here, so it's all up to the pundits to shape people's perceptions of
what happened, as usual, for the majority who didn't see it in person.

Too many Dems think expectations management is some kind of "admission of weakness". They don't understand that sometimes downplaying your strengths makes you more popular and more likely to succeed. Bush doesn't understand that apologising for certain things would make him smell like a rose, for instance.

[Octafish]

69. Josh Marshall WRONG. NYT said Bush was 'INCOHERENT'

And the president was utterly incoherent when asked about whom he might name to the Supreme Court in a second term. His comment about how he didn't want to offend any judges because he wanted "them all voting for me" was a joke - but an unfortunate one, given the fact that the president owes his job to a Supreme Court vote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/opinion/9sat1.html

Gee. Rational v. Incoherent. Who won?

Use your own eyes. Use your own ear. Use your own mind.