October 13, 2004

7:17 pm: With the debate a mere 43 minutes away, I'm in a race. Will I finish my dishes before the debate begins? Riveting, isn't it? Tonight's debate, for those of you who that don't know, will be held in the Grady Gammage Auditorium on the Arizona State University campus. The auditorium is:

considered by many to be the crowning jewel of ASU’s campus, is one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s last designs. Wright designed the building to be as acoustically perfect as possible.

Arizona State is also one of only 14 Division 1-A schools to still have an undefeated football team. Interestingly enough, the University of Miami, where the first debate was held, is also home to an undefeated football team. Clearly, the 2nd debate should have taken place in Madison instead of St. Louis ;-)

7:36 pm: Last time I liveblogged, I noticed that a lot of comments came in during the debate. Of course, I didn't notice this until I was done blogging. Tonight, I'll keep an eye on the comments, so if you have any questions or have something you want me to address, fire away and I'll take a stab at it.

7:53 pm: My darling Brit Hume informs me that tonight is all about domestic issues. Now, I know that my bingo cards cover both domestic and foreign issues, but I'm not worried. It's not as if either candidate actually answers the questions. They use the questions as a springboard into a particular section of their stump speech. I'm sure we'll still hear all about Iraq, $87 billion and Osama bin Laden.

7:59 pm: Shhh, don't tell anyone, but I find Bill Kristol from FoxNews quite attractive.

8:03 pm Is that a bulge? Or is President Bush just happy to see me?

8:05 pm What kind of weirdo question is that? Do 50-year olds really believe they grew up in a world they felt was safe? Does no one remember being afraid of nuclear war? Ugh. Again with the damn containers.

8:08 pm This will be a nice trap for Kerry on this flu question. Bush is calling for sacrifice, Kerry will criticize him for it, but later tonight Kerry will tell the workers and the successful that they should sacrifice for the slackers and deadbeats.

8:12 pm: I wish Bush had the balls to say, "Why should we ask taxpaying Americans to pay for the health insurance of those that don't work and don't pay taxes? Have we suddenly become socialist?"

Ohhh, but this is good too: "a plan is not a litany of complaints". Great line! Wow, 5 trillion dollars. Those are some amazing soundbites. Bush is on fire so far.

8:17 pm Call me a cynic, but it's hard for me to take the most liberal Senator in America seriously when he claims to be a fiscal conservative. Bwah! Bush is no fiscal conservative, but he's Ebenezer Scrooge compared to Kerry.

Bush is really calling him out on his record. Poor Kerry. He'd be so much better off if he could have somehow managed to have never voted in the Senate. He'd be golden then.

8:20 pm: I can't believe Kerry brought up unemployment benefits. I hope Bush mentions that Kerry's missed vote is why those unemployement benefits were not extended. C'mon Mr. President, remember that point!

8:23 pm: Our first commentator, Moses, thinks it's ironic that we run a blog called Dummocrats that supports President Bush. I think that when Moses calls the President an "imbecile" he actually illustrates our point.

8:26 pm: I like that Bush is arguing from conservative theories. He's pointing out that Kerry's plans involve spending our money, not some magical government money. Heh...awesome, "Ted Kennedy is the conservative Senator from Massachuesetts".

8:28 pm: I can't believe that Kerry is so low class that he'd bring Dick Cheney's daughter into the debate. Asshole. I guess this time it really is personal.

8:33 pm: I'd just like to point out that calling our President an "imbecile" is not a point. It's inane name calling. I don't think John Kerry or John Edwards are stupid. I think they're naive and I think they're wrong. I enjoy debating with people, but there's no debating someone who has nothing to offer other than a list of names and slogans.

8:39 pm: Heh, two national networks criticized the President. Seriously? Kerry must be kidding. We all know how impartial the networks are. So, Kerry isn't going to force us to do anything, but he's going to mock those people who don't want shitty government insurance. Nice.

8:45 pm: Wow. President Bush went there. That was awesome! He just called out the mainstream media on their bias. Between this and the "need some wood" comment, I just love the President.

Bush should invoke Reagan when he's talking about how the government running health care will ruin it.

James, I was going to bring up the Harvard & Yale degrees to defend Bush's intelligence, but then I realized that it was Harvard & Yale and I just can't use the Ivy League to defend anyone. I don't have it in me.

8:48 pm: Hey, who pays taxes? Do poor people pay a lot of taxes? I'm just asking....

8:50 pm: You know, $200,000 a year isn't that much money. Those people can't burn money for warmth or anything. Does anyone think that John Kerry would have any idea of how to survive on $200,000 a year?

8:54 pm: I thought Bush gave a fantastic answer on immigration. A nice balance of practicality and compassion.

One thing I hate about Kerry is that he thinks he's being in touch with the "common" man by taking "g"s off the ends of words. He's not "gettin" it.

8:58 pm: Why haven't they asked any education questions? Is Schaefer purposely avoiding them because education is seen as a strength for President Bush?

9:01 pm: Oooh, will Kerry appoint judges who would undue the 2nd Amendment? Please, oh please ask him that Mr. President!

9:06 pm: If i were President Bush I would strongly consider walking off the stage right now. I cannot believe that they are draft rumour mongering. This is utter and complete bullshit. Hopefully, Bush will respond by talking about taking troops out of Europe, which Kerry stupidly opposed.

What's this "real" alliances? Are our alliances with the Brits, the Poles and the Aussies not "real" alliances? I guess not according to this jackass.

9:08 pm: President Bush brings down the hammer. Yes indeed, Senator Kerry did not vote for the 1st Gulf War. Everyone was all over him for missing this in the 1st debate. Nice job getting it in this time.

9:15 pm: The President should have actually answered this question. He should have attacked the Democrats for their pandering and their belief that minorities need handouts in order to succeed.

9:18 pm: Liberals everywhere are rolling their eyes as Bush talks about prayer. They hate that the President prays. Unfortunately for them, many more Americans do pray and do care. When Kerry says he "respects" someone's faith or beliefs, am I the only one who thinks that's Kerry-code for "I completely disagree with everything that you're saying"?

9:21 pm: How in the world would Kerry know what happens on the floor on the US Senate now? Heh, maybe he never goes to committee meetings because he's locked out ;-)

9:28 pm: You know, America is never united except in times of crisis. Maybe it's a good thing that we're not united. If I could choose between a divided America and a united America in the aftermath of a terrorist nuclear attack, I'd choose a divided America.

9:31 pm: Instanalysis - I think this was a crappy debate. The questions were just weird. The highlight was the President's outing of the liberal media. The lowlight was Kerry's outing of Dick Cheney's daughter.

9:36 pm: This wasn't nearly as fun as the first debate. But, all the Fox commentators seemed to love it. Maybe I'm alone. What do you all think?

9:47 pm: Reader Jason points out that Kerry said "idear" instead of "idea" at the end of the debate. I thought I caught that too, so I'll take Jason's word as confirmation. I think the Kerry campaign thinks everyone outside of New York, DC, Boston and Hollywood is a corn fed idiot.

Posted by at October 13, 2004 07:24 PM

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