The conventional wisdom seems to be that the debate last night was a tie -- obviously partisan operators aren't saying that, but the general idea is that each candidate seemed to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish, short of vanquishing his opponent outright, and so each candidate's supporters viewed the night as a victory. The snap polls seem to bear this out.
My own snap poll of one found that Kerry won convincingly, improving the fluidity, sharpness, and clipability of his performance over the last debate (which I thought was somewhat overhyped as a Kerry victory -- it was more of a Bush loss). Readers of this blog know I'm not a big fan of Kerry's, that I've basically held my nose to support him in light of the alternative. Well, the debate last night was the first time I've been really impressed with his performance. He was concise, informed, witty but dead serious. He also seemed (to me at least) much more empathetic than Bush, whose whole tough love shtick is starting to grate.
I do feel that Bush did much better in this debate than the last one, although I have a much harder time gauging his performance since I'm pretty much repulsed by everything he says. (Can it be that people are actually inspired by this man?) But while the Bush folks will probably get some momentum out of this "tie," it will be Kerry who gains in the long run. He's solidifying his image as a man capable to leading the country -- and slowly but surely putting to rest the notion that he's wishy-washy and inconsistent. He now represents a legitimate choice, and as we get closer to the election, I predict independent voters will break toward him.
MORE: Political Wire has follow up numbers that are more in line with how I read the debate.
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