I think that both of them missed a large number of opportunities. Personally I thought the format was poor. Their inability to actually direct questions at each other constrained their responses to make the whole thing boring.

Kerry is a good debater, one of the best we've seen in a while, and Bush doesn't have that skill. Knowing that going in, I think that a tie says a lot for Bush and not so much for Kerry.

Really, substantively, I don't think we learned anything new. I still don't know what Kerry's plans are if he becomes President. I don't know how he thinks he'll get France or Germany or anyone else to get involved in Iraq. A few times he said Saddam was a threat, he had to be disarmed, but we rushed into the war. If that is the case, then why did he say a few months ago that given all that he knows now that he would still have gone into Iraq? Personally I was annoyed by Kerry going back to previous questions in an attempt to cover for his lack of a position on certain issues.

Bush didn't step up and show his successes in the world as forcefully as he should. He also didn't really have a strong answer for Iran (although I think he did well on North Korea). He also didn't have an answer for Darfour (neither did Kerry). Bush did appear to lose his train of thought a few times.

I'm really surprised at the networks. My understanding was that we were not supposed to see the candidate that was not speaking, but those camera angles from behind the candidates tended to show the ones not speaking at certain times and I think this was quite unfair to Bush (Kerry being the more experienced debater was better at remaining impassive during these times).

In the end, a tie is all I can give this one. Of course in most sports, a tie means the champion keeps his title....

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan