OK Bush supporters – gather ’round the campfire

Calling all conservatives, Republicans, and others who support the President who are feeling like the wind has been sucked out of you today by all the “Kerry won” talk around the blogosphere and political message boards.

He didn’t.

Bush didn’t, either.

The consensus seems to be by and large from the ‘official’ talking heads today that the debate was a draw (Kerryman Joe Lockhart even said so last night on CSPAN), even though if you surf around the blogosphere and political message boards like I do, you’ll get the idea that it was a blowout for Kerry. It wasn’t. At most, it could be argued, depending on what side of the fence you’re on, that Kerry edged the President as the winner or vice versa. But to say there was a clear cut winner either way I think isn’t an accurate assessment of last night’s shootout-with-blanks.

There were no memorable one liners, no one appeared to be sweating, Kerry didn’t look orange … the President smirked a few times (Kerry did once, that I can recall) but that’s the nature of the President. He’s a smirker. Might wanna watch that in the next debate, though, to be sure.

There wasn’t anything memorable from the back and forth last night – although you wouldn’t know it if you went to the DNC website today. They are using images from the debate in a new campaign ad (called “Faces of Frustation”) which Shape of Days argues is a violation of official debate rules. Seems pretty clear cut to me.

All that said, don’t let this curb your enthusiasm for the President. We knew going into this that he is not the slickest talker – and that’s not a bad thing, BTW, considering the last slick talker we had for president Before this debate, the Washington Post noted that the enthusiasm Republicans felt for the President far outweighed the enthusiasm Democrats were feeling for Sen. Kerry. As it stands now, the debate didn’t persuade any of the as-yet-undecideds. It’s given the Dems another lifeline, but not much more. And as I mentioned before, the true ‘results’ of the debate will be known when the ‘official’ polls start coming out.

Until then, hold on to your hats. We’ve got two more debates and five weeks to go. The President has made steady progress this last month. Don’t give up – we’re just now getting warmed up!