Thursday, September 30, 2004

First Debate

The first presidential debate was interesting, from Bush's scowls to Kerry's poise. I liked that the two wives were wearing pink suits that were almost identical. I think that Kerry came across as a good orator, while Bush seems to have lost focus towards the end and gone off into unscripted remarks.
I joined a group of Kerry-Edwards supporters calling voters after the debate, to see if they had watched, what their thoughts were, and most importantly, if it influenced their decision of who they would vote for. I called about 30 people, found most had watched it, and of my small sample, there were a few more Kerry voters than Bush voters. I had one rude hangup, but, notably the undecided folks were still undecided. One guy told me he wasn't voting this year as the choices were not good. What could I say? Well, I told him to keep watching the debates and maybe he would find one candidate he liked. The calls were made on campaign cell phones from a restaurant; the noise volume made it hard to hear; someone asked if I was calling from a bar.
There were several volunteers who had never done any campaign work before, and they were really brave starting with phone calls to voters of unknown variety. I admired that they came down and joined in the process -- to me the most exciting thing of all is to see people get involved and excited.
Round 2 and 3 of the debates will be interesting, as will the Edwards-Cheney debate. I hope Edwards shows his true courtroom skills and really demonstrates his style.