2004 Presidential Debate Analysis on ABC This Week 🗳️📼

it's very broad brush and in those broad brushes Carrie came across as calm determined presidential and Bush was edgy and testy you remember last week I said to you there have been some studies about that that the sound off the same person wins as with the sound on and that this was a perfect example of that what George Bush said was fine it's it's how he looked it's it was the reaction shots it was he he was the Al Gore of this debate so aside from the the petulant this would have been a draw I'm not so sure the president seems to be saying there is one issue this year it is the war and if you criticize my conduct of it you're demoralizing the troops so be quiet on the great issue of the war that that really won't last for the next 30 days the president asks a good question he says how can a man who says this is the wrong war wrong place wrong time how can he win the war Senator ker asked a good question how can a man solve a problem he won't see which is what the president is essentially saying when he says things are going swimmingly in Iraq and I think it's it's deeper than that and I think to K's Advantage which is this is the first time in the debate that kri has Bush on the defensive on Iraq which is surprising given the reality in Iraq but suddenly for the first time we are debating George Bush's position on Iraq for the last six months we've been debating John K's various positions except that the bush team is doing everything they can coming out of the debate to to turn that around President Bush two days in a row said that basically Senator curry made three big mistakes in the debate David Brooks he talked to about this mistake uh contradiction he says that uh Senator kry wants a global test for action and he also they seem to be taking aim at this idea that Senator kery had that his vote against the $87 billion was a protest vote I think that's a huge Gaff yeah I think that is those are three mistakes I'd say one made one more which is say the war on terror is a war against Al-Qaeda when I think bush is right and the 911 Commission is right that it's a broader War nonetheless let's not to get to policy have here right the this show is about policy that debate with 65 million viewers is about character people are fuzzy on policy people are really good at reading character and somehow John KY a man who made no friends in 20 years in the Senate came across as a friendlier guy than George Bush a couple of things first of all the the format worked to his Advantage because he had to talk short an unnatural act for a member of the United States Senate and and he did it and he was therefore much more effective um but secondly he has now established and this to me is the important thing a threshold uh it's not winning that debate it's getting to a certain point on Iraq and foreign policy where he's now okay and now he moves on to democ I think that's that's a very key Point forget about the horse race numbers in these polls because you know who knows whether they're reliable or not but one thing that's consistently shown throughout all the polls that have been taken since Thursday is that Senator Cary helped himself on likability on strength on whether he's a qualified commanderin-chief and this is this is so important for him George will because the president's team was really hoping by having Nation security come first they could deliver a knockout blow on those questions because a knockout blow would have devalued the next debate which is not on his home territory which is foreign policy now what they've done is they've said gosh we better tune into this next debate instead of watching whatever we could have watch because this is on a different subject and we want to see not the subject not the policy but we want to see if the president recovers now that's not the point you want to have in the voters Minds 20 whatever it'll be six days before the election one other point which is the morale of the democratic party which has just been transformed in the past few days it was as if you'd see not the traes on Georgia's Turf but see the number nine hitter coming up in a crucial situation he's been batting 220 all year with no home runs and he hits a home run for you suddenly you think history is on your side and I think a lot of Democrats really had lost some confidence in John krey and now they've got it back that's right and as Ki pointed out the next two debates are likely to move towards domestic issues