W's Last Stand

Will he go out scowling and screaming? Can he win if he does? We're about to find out.

I suspect Bush will mention at some point an argument that surfaced earlier this week as a trial balloon -- the allegation that Kerry and his heiress wife pay a lower tax rate than most middle class families. I hope he does, because then Kerry can fire back by saying that's exactly why the Bush tax policy needs to stop favoring the rich.

9:12: The first thing Bush does is take a pen out of his jacket. Remember when Kerry did just that in the first debate and the Drudge Report accused him of taking out a cheat sheet? Ha ha.

Also, what do you think Bush and Kerry say to each other as they shake hands?

I think things are starting well for Bush. He's smiling a lot -- a lot -- and Kerry has fallen back into his habit of using loooooong sentences.

Bush -- who refers to terrorists as "folks" -- mocks Kerry for saying in an interview that terrorism needs to be reduced to a nuisance. Kerry has a nice response, noting that Bush once said he "doesn't worry" that much about bin Laden. Bush says that's an exaggeration, which is a huge mistake, because he did, in fact, say exactly that. You saw him say it if you saw Fahrenheit 9/11. Sounds like a flip-flop. But will average voters notice?

9:20: Here's a video of Bush saying "I don't know where he (bin Laden) is... I truly am not that concerned about him." So, it sounds like Kerry wasn't exaggerating when he accused Bush of saying he didn't worry much about bin Laden.

9:30: Bush just said Ted Kennedy was the "conservative senator from Massachusetts." But last time he said Kennedy was the most liberal senator in the country. How confusing.

9:36: Bush is lying (see 9:20), but he's doing a great job. He looks much more personable than Kerry. Kerry is doing fine, but he's not exactly inspiring. Bush looks secure and not crazy anymore, which is people like in a leader.

9:40: I really want Kerry to swing it into high gear. Cool and collected works well when Bush is self-destructing, but Bush isn't self-destructing.

9:42: Whoa. Is Kerry getting hustled? Was Bush just pretending to be a stuttering fool in the last two debates? Sorry if I seem startled, but Bush just cited an actual... number. It was in a question about veterans' health care. He almost never uses... numbers.

9:45: Bush's claim that Kerry voted against partial-birth abortion is infuriating. He voted against it because the ban didn't include an exemption in cases where the mother's life was in danger. The bill could have literally forced women to go forward with pregnancies that would kill them.

If Republicans really cared about partial-birth abortion, they would have written a bill a decade ago with an exemption to the ban when the mother's life was at risk. Democrats would have signed on, and countless partial-birth abortions would have been prevented. But Republicans aren't really obsessed with preventing partial-birth abortions. What they're obsessed with is being able to say Democrats favor them.

If Republicans love unborn babies so much, why did they allow so many of them to be partial-birth aborted because they refused to work with Democrats on a ban that would have passed?

9:53: Bush is giving a reasonable and humane answer on immigration. That'll cost him the white supremacist vote.

9:57: Also, that immigration answer contained a semi-truth: Bush said he opposed amnesty. Maybe he doesn't favor it now, but he flirted with it before Sept. 11. Take it from the conservative Washington Times:

Before the September 11 attacks, the administration had begun talks with Mexican President Vicente Fox about ways to legalize more than 3 million undocumented Mexicans living in the United States. The dialogue ended after the attacks.

10:05: Good point, Kerry! Why are National Guardsmen defending Iraq instead of defending the United States from another domestic terror attack? Aren't they called the National Guard for a reason?

Uh-oh: Bush uses an anecdote about proud soldiers. Approval ratings climb. Anecdotes connect with people, unlike those scary numbers. That's probably why he doesn't mess with them too often.

10:09: The president says the best way to protect people from guns is to punish people who use them. Uh, no. That doesn't sound too proactive. That means someone has to get shot before you do anything.

At first I was mad that Kerry didn't point out that Bush was getting behind the problem instead of getting in front of it. But then he hit the guns question out of the park with an answer that mentioned 1. He is a hunter 2. He has been hunting in the swing state of Iowa 3. The sheriff he was hunting with pointed out a house where a drug runner kept an AK-47 4. Osama bin Laden hopes to take advantage of the easy access to assault weapons in America.

Very nice answer.

10:16: Bush's answer about religion is masterful. He says he prays often, and that it's private (even though he's talking about it now -- hey, they asked.) His comment that you're "equally an American" whether you're a Christian, Jew, Muslim or atheist covers every possible base.

Kerry's comment that he "measures" the words of the Bible makes him sound kind of like a Biblical scholar, which I guess might impress people in our very religious country. Or just make him sound weird. His comment about "Native Americans who gave me a blessing the other day" was a pretty heavy-handed aside.

10:19: Kerry is such a pro. While praising Bush for his leadership after Sept. 11, he mentions that Bush and Tom Daschle shared a very "genuine" hug. This is of course the same hug that Daschle is being accused of exploiting in his very close re-election bid. Now that's how you make an offhanded comment.

10:30: Both have excellent, personable answers to the softball question about the influence of strong women in their lives. Bush finally makes a successful joke about his scowling, and has a sweet story about falling in love at first sight with Laura. Kerry has a great answer too, saying he and the others "married up." And his memory of his mother on her death bed saying "integrity, integrity, integrity" is pretty powerful.

All in all, Bush wins. Expectations were so low from the previous debates, I think he'll get a lot of points just for looking solid. Bush had a lot of answers that sounded good, even though (as detailed above) some of them weren't true.

As for the long term, Kerry may have helped himself a lot by looking human, at least as he warmed up. I also think Democrats got another killer attack ad out of Bush's stupid, false answer when he denied ever saying he wasn't worried about bin Laden. Here's that video again.