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walbournI made a point of not watching tonight's Presidential Debate. There really isn't anything that is going to change my mind at this point, and frankly every time I hear Bush speak my blood-pressure spikes. He is just so damn condescending and sometimes I wonder if he even lives on the same planet. Kerry often comes off like he is at a high-school debate club event, but generally speaking I think he has his head on straight.
I remember the 2000 election being a real pain because frankly neither of the candidates (Bush or Gore) did a good job of actually presenting themselves as people. They were flavorless near-copies of each other as they both strived to appear far more mainstream than either of them really were. This time, the two main candidates are like night and day in terms of the direction they are going to take the country in the next four years.
I did see The Daily Show do some coverage of the event, which was amusing as always. They spoke with a Democrat and a Republican about the debate, and basically Giuliani--who I generally have respect for as a politician--spent his whole time repeating the old established spin and completely ignoring Kerry vs Bush's actual performance. It seems like the main thing a Democrat has to do when debating Bush is not come off like he's arrogant because really Bush is so bad at spontaneous thought and going off-script that it is hard not to make him look like an idiot. Never mind that Bush is an idiot.
Really, this election is 100% about ideology. Facts like who is the better debater, who is more intelligent and thoughtful, who is more prepared are totally irrelevant to most of the voters at this point. It isn't even about the Iraq war, Social Security, or tax policy. It is about "Us vs. Them" on both sides, and the Republicans feel they have the Dems in a vice-grip and want to break their necks for the foreseeable future. Throw in the "Christ-complex" (pardon the pun) of the Religious Conservatives who feel like somehow the "Christian Way of Life" is threatened by anything less than a theocracy and you have some serious zealotry in the offering.
I remember the 2000 election being a real pain because frankly neither of the candidates (Bush or Gore) did a good job of actually presenting themselves as people. They were flavorless near-copies of each other as they both strived to appear far more mainstream than either of them really were. This time, the two main candidates are like night and day in terms of the direction they are going to take the country in the next four years.
I did see The Daily Show do some coverage of the event, which was amusing as always. They spoke with a Democrat and a Republican about the debate, and basically Giuliani--who I generally have respect for as a politician--spent his whole time repeating the old established spin and completely ignoring Kerry vs Bush's actual performance. It seems like the main thing a Democrat has to do when debating Bush is not come off like he's arrogant because really Bush is so bad at spontaneous thought and going off-script that it is hard not to make him look like an idiot. Never mind that Bush is an idiot.
Really, this election is 100% about ideology. Facts like who is the better debater, who is more intelligent and thoughtful, who is more prepared are totally irrelevant to most of the voters at this point. It isn't even about the Iraq war, Social Security, or tax policy. It is about "Us vs. Them" on both sides, and the Republicans feel they have the Dems in a vice-grip and want to break their necks for the foreseeable future. Throw in the "Christ-complex" (pardon the pun) of the Religious Conservatives who feel like somehow the "Christian Way of Life" is threatened by anything less than a theocracy and you have some serious zealotry in the offering.
