USA TODAY/CNN/GALLUP POLL: Bush 49%, Kerry 49%, Nader 1% | Bush JA @ 50%

[Intolerant in NJ]

Now Bush goes on the campaign trail and blasts Skerry... He's speaking to the choir... Where the hell was he the previous night...Exactly - he had fifty million viewers and ninety minutes of free air time, stood there letting someone lie about him to his face, and kept repeating the same tired lines over and over - the biggest damage IMO is to let so many falsehoods go unchallenged - how many rallies, poorly covered by the MSM, and millions of dollars in advertising will it take to undo that damage? - I hope there's enough time and money left........

[willk]

I sure hope the Christian Coalition gets out the vote this time!

[teletech]

Fair enough, but let the record show you backed away from my wager.

Well I guess if I'm going to be accused of backing away from a wager, I should REALLY back away. So... you can take your wager and put it where the sun don't shine!

[My2Cents]

he has no moral value, the list of lies the man has spoken in the pre-debate is astonding to the mind.

Is that why Kerry has the support of 49% of the voters, according to the latest Gallup poll? That's what I find most disturbing. Considering all that we know about John Kerry -- the exaggeration of his service record, his behavior after he returned from Vietnam and his stabbing of his fellow service men there in the back, his 20 years of liberal Senate voting including his failure to defend this nation by opposing all of the weapons systems that have made the difference in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all the lies...and he still has about half the nation's support. This poll (if it's valid...and it may not be; it could be an outlier) says more about the inability of the American people to tell a phony when they're presented with one than it does about the effectiveness of Kerry's debating style.

[goldstategop]

2000 Redux? Who knows - and what's telling is Kerry still cannot break 50% after a debate every one thought he won.

[My2Cents]

not in a 50-50 race youre not looking at 320 EVs.

Then let's wait to see what the individual state polls show this week. You've stated (many times) on this thread that we can expect Kerry to have regained the lead in Wisc. and Iowa, and yet you have nothing to show that this is the case. Face it...you're a disrupter. I spit on your posts.

[ALWAYSWELDING]

Look, nobody will be talking about this after the next 3 debates (Chaney's and Bush's).

In addition, think sensibly now. We know Newsweek's poll was bogus. If you look at the internals, Bush would still have a lead had they polled the right demographics. So how could the Gallop poll be the same as Newsweek? There is something going on with the Gallop poll as well. I'm not saying on purpose, I'm saying there's more to this story. Look at Rasmussen showing almost the same after the debate and the LA Times pole showing Bush picked up a point after the debate. We all need to wait and give this the rest of the week to work itself out. No more freaking out, we will think of ourselves as idiots later.

[CalRepublican]

What most amazed me is how he let himself be placed on the defensive. Yes, Lehrer asked biased questions--To Kerry "What mistakes has Bush made?"; To Bush "What mistakes have you made?"

Even conceding that, Bush performed poorly. The very first question was his chance to smash Kerry. To permit Kerry to claim he would do a better job of keeping the nation safe after his 18 years in the Senate is just unacceptable. Bush should have nailed him on his votes to decrease intelligence funding, and he should have nailed him on his mist votes and Senate Intelligence Committee meetings.

Bush should have made clear that the man debating him him--the man telling us he could make us safer--was part of the problem and part of the reason why we weren't safe on 9-11 and not safe now.

Instead, Bush started off on the "hard work" line he parrotted all frigging night. Look, I agree with him. I agreed with him the first and last times he said it and all the times in between. What I wanted to hear him give were specific reasons why--beyond the flip-flopping--Kerry isn't up to the job.

I really think that the Bush campaign has gotten just about all it's going to get out of the flip-flopping stuff. It's pretty much already incorporated in Kerry's low support. Bush can keep hitting him on that while at the same time opening a new line of attack--Kerry is a kept-man, an effete, pseudo-intellectual lazy ass who misses important votes and committee meetings and wants to cozy up to terrorists.

[NYC Republican]

Couldn't have said it better myself!

[pabianice]

Bush did not have a good night. I expect him to be far better in the second and third debates.

[HitmanLV]

If you really believed in what you said, you would take my bet. Oh well.