The Spin

As promised, I didn't watch the debate last night, but I did watch about 30 minutes of the post debate coverage, along with checking some of the live blogs like Hugh, Powerline, The Corner and others. With the exception of Hugh, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that Kerry may have won a narrow victory, or the event was a draw (Hugh thought it was a smashing Bush success).

I've been reading the post-debate coverage and one thing is becoming clear. Bush made no gaffes that will hurt his campaign, while Kerry said several things that in the light of the new day, look bad for him. You can expect to hear about his "Global Test" for preemptive military action from every Republican until the next debate.

The biggest criticism of Bush that I could find is that he looked tired. That may well be true - let's examine what the candidates did in the hours before the debate. President Bush had a very emotionally draining visit with victims of the various hurricanes that have struck Florida. Kerry got a manicure.

Nothing spells out the differences between these two better than that.