'Slack-Jawed'

"Overall, in advance of the debate, people had expected Bush to win easily and Kerry to do poorly. Exactly the opposite happened, and many people on both sides of this contest were slack-jawed as a result. Should Bush lose the election, Sept. 30 will be remembered as a key turning point: a night when Bush could have put Kerry away and instead produced perhaps the worst debate performance in his career. It wasn't so much a failure of Bush's travel-tested arguments, but rather his un-presidential slouching onto the podium, and his eye-glazing, over-repetition of the same hackneyed phrases."

More Deceit on Friday Night?

He notes that Bush is at a disadvantage during the "town hall" so-called debate Friday in St. Louis. It could become a "mugging" of the president because "most of the tough average citizen questions will certainly be directed at Bush, not Kerry - even if the selection of the average citizens has been fair and no citizen has deceived the Gallup interrogators (which we doubt). It's in the nature of the presidential job, one of the only disadvantages of incumbency. Voters will target the occupant of the White House for any deficiencies they see. Kerry merely has to sit back, sympathize, and feel the pain of the complainants."

In Arizona next Wednesday, the final so-called debate, on social issues, also favors the Democrats, the party that prides itself as "generous" for throwing taxpayers' dollars at everything from the failed government school monopolies to socialized medicine (even though no one has squandered more than Bush).

Sabato notes two factors that could favor Bush: Now he's the underdog facing lower expectations, and Friday morning the government will issue its report on jobs.

He observes, "Perhaps Bush's best strategy for the final debates is to become much more aggressive, pressing Kerry hard on his liberal positions and alleged flip-flops."

"Alleged"?

Editor's note: