All the post-debate polls are saying Kerry "won" (I still don't think that's the right word) and an amazing number of Conservative websites and pundits are either agreeing or claiming it was a draw. And these last are the kind of partisans who'd be claiming Bush won big if there was any possible way they could say that with a straight face. Maybe I need to watch it again but I didn't think Bush did that poorly. I thought he looked more like a leader than he did in that prime-time press conference…the one where he couldn't think of a single mistake he'd made. And his fans had no trouble spinning that as a bravuro performance.
So I guess I was wrong that all his partisans would be out spinning that their guy cleaned Kerry's clock. Some are but some are talking about how Reagan did poorly in his first debate against Walter Mondale but bounced back in the second.
Hey, remember how I said I was going to dinner? I went down to my favorite place for a quick meal, Koo Koo Roo. While there, I overheard two people talking about the debate. One was talking about the question where Kerry was asked what he thought was the greatest threat to the United States and he answered, "Nuclear proliferation." The other Koo Koo Roo diner said, "He only said that because he thought Bush couldn't pronounce it."