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Originally Posted by Brandon
Look at this way: who made more of an impact on the undecideds in the debates? Kerry.
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This whole concept of targeting "undecided voters" seems a bit unreliable. The concensus seems to be that the vast majority of them are middle-aged white women. If their vote is truly undecided at this point, whay are we even so sure they'll get up off their asses to vote in 20 days? Maybe they're just responding to pollsters because they're lonely. If their votes are truly swinging on the etherial "impressions" given by the candidates during the "debates" then we can surely say they are ignorant of the issues and thus aren't the most motivated voters.
Additionally, to say Kerry's winning them over ignores a few facts... the first of these being that they aren't making decisions based on issues but on impressions. Yes, Kerry has made his issue positions clearer than has Bush during the debates, but that only affects those that already know what the issues are and those folks are not undecided voters. Second and Third, while so-called "independents" generally do not vote Republican, "undecideds" are moderate centrists and those folk generally vote for incumbents in times of war. Kerry has allowed the debate to continue to be centered on how he would be a suitable replacement for Bush as the leader in the War on Terror. This is exactly where he shouldn't be standing.
While this tack might shore up his queasy base, making their partisan support feel more reasoned, it puts him in a defensive position where Bush can easily attack him from all angles. Kerry has recently become more coherent in his attacks on Bush's war handling, trying to take the offensive, but whatever ground he gained he has since lost. There's a reason Bush is already signaling tonight's debate will once again focus on Iraq, despite the advertised agenda. It's Bush territory and he knows it.
Kerry will want to focus on domestic issues, as he feels stronger there. He won't be able to if Bush presses him on foreign policy, as I suspect he will. Bush can take Kerry's dumbass "nuisance" gaffe and apply a straw man methodology to Kerry's entire world-view that Kerry will have to spend 90 minutes defending, leaving little or no time left for offensive maneuvering. I honestly did not believe that Bush would be allowed to make all 4 debates Iraq-centric, but it doesn't look like anyone's stopping him.
So far the debates haven't favored either side conclusively, so tonight is a winner-take-all event as far as the debates go. Kerry will have to do more than just successfully defend himself to sufficiently impress anyone who's not already made up their minds. He's going to have to parry Bush's attacks... which were given to Bush by Kerry himself... and attack Bush a helluva lot more effectively than he's been able to pull off at any point in the last year.
If Kerry wins tonight by this criteria, we will all be sitting here tomorrow saying "Wow!" It will have been probably the greatest political performance in American History. I'm not holding my breath. I'm betting Kerry's team would rather just skip this last debate at this point. Team Bush© on the other hand, is probably chomping at the bit. Dubya's all fired up and ready to crow about Afghanistan and squawk about Kerry's 9/10/1 mindset. Dubya-GOOD, Kerry-BAD. Kerry hasn't shown an ability to manufacture rebuttal on the fly, so he'll counter nearly all of the attacks with random lame-ass canned stump speech excerpts...
Yes, I've got a negative attitude. Kerry sucks at this.