Debate tonight

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Debate tonight
303
Thu, 09-30-2004 - 10:54pm
So, what did everybody think? This debate was my first (missed last yr's) and I enjoyed it. I liked how they were both respectful to each other and professional. No sighing, making facial expressions, slouching etc. I can't wait for the vp debates. :) XOXO.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-06-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 9:01am
Oops, guess I haven't had enough caffeine this morning and thought we were discussing the VP debate. Sorry about that!

Regarding the presidential debate, I thought Kerry did much better than Bush. Bush looked tired and wasn't able to articulate his message as well as he has in the past. Kerry was more forceful and gave his best shot at trying to sound more decisive and consistent to try and make up for his image as a flip/flopper.

It'll be interesting to see how the 2nd round goes on Friday. Looking forward to watching it!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 10:16am
hg
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 10:44am
I agree with your assesment 100%.

On the foreign policy front, Edwards only response was that he and Kerry have been consistent, and as Cheney pointed out, Kerry has been consistantly all over the place, and cited examples to back up his point. He also put Kerry's Senate voting record back in the limelight, showing how poor Kerry has been on the military, intelligence and on national security as a whole.

The one thing that Cheney could have done to better himself in the domestic debate was to point out that in order to pay for just the proposed health care program of the Kerry / Edwards ticket, taxes will have to be raised for all working americans. This is where Edwards did better as he pointed to some specifics that he and Kerry would be doing differently, even though he did not explain how they planed to pay for the proposed spending increases.

The estimated cost for the healthcare program is just under $1 trillion, and by rolling back the tax cuts on the people earning over $200,000., that would pay for roughly 30% of the total cost. Kerry has not explained where the other 70% would be coming from, and he also does not take into consideration the costs for his other proposed expenditures, like doubling the $30 billion already being spent by the cuurent administation for education(where is that going to come from), adding 2 fighting battalions to the military ($10 billion), etc.

Cheney could have pointed this out, especially since Edwards said that Kerry would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $200,000. and would also look to increase the middle class tax cut. Where is the additional money going to come from?

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