What Color is My Sky?

As with the first presidential debate, we listened to this one on NPR radio. Afterwards, we hit the instapolls online, and then went out for a late supper at ye olde Steakback Outhouse. What surprised the heck out of me at Outback was that they had the debate rebroadcast on the bar teevee, turned up loud enough to be heard through the bar, and with what seemed like a lively and engaged crowd watching it. In fact, when my glance hovered on the screen as we were walking in, the hostess offered to seat us in the bar, but I wasn't feeling sturdy enough to reprise the entire debate so soon. But still, this on a Friday night, in a bar, right in the middle of the playoffs, or whatever they call them, in baseball. That seems to me to show a surprising level of political engagement on the part of ordinary folks. That's what I keep hearing, but it was good to see it live. Especially since the ejaculations emanating from the bar seemed to indicate a vociferous Kerry crowd. Go, team.

But the real surprise of the evening was that the NPR commentators, and apparently some of the televised cable pundits, were trying to claim that Bush had done well in the debate. What debate were they hearing? Does watching it on television make that much difference in impact? The debate I heard revealed a Bush who, after the first question or so, when he seemed much more pulled together, went off the deep end. Bush was a screeching, hectoring, shrill, desperate bully of a man, rudely interrupting everyone around, and giving the impression of being on the edge of hysteria. Later, catching glimpses on the Outback bar teevee, I could see that Bush did have moments of looking a bit like a talk show host, as he strutted around the stage, so maybe that's what they were seeing as his calm demeanor. But at the same time, even on teevee, there were some really strange quirks going on there. That creepy rapid eyeblinking thing, the staccatto, headbob mannerism that puts you in mind of an epileptic chicken, and a jerky, one-shoulder-only, flailing shrug that made me think of an audio-animatronic robot in need of a reboot. I feel certain that a really hillarious blooper reel could be put together of Bush's various jerks, tics, twitches, and spastic mannerisms. Am I the only person who sees this stuff?

That's More Like It

I sometimes feel like I should apologize to my British and Australian friends, and anybody else for whom American politics is not approaching a monomaniacal obsession right about now. But I've never felt so much was riding on a single presidential election in my lifetime as there is now. So while I'm sorry if I'm boring anyone, it's not likely to change before November 2, at the earliest. And maybe not then, either. I think I may be the archetypal Deaniac in that way, that is, Dean's candidacy has fundamentally changed the way I feel about my involvement in politics, and the Democratic party. As I've come to see it, participation in politics is like doing the dishes. You have to do it every day, because if you just leave it for more fun stuff, and hope someone else will take care of it for you, bad things happen.

Swinnyway, after hearing the initial reaction of the NPR commentators last night, I was pleased to see that theirs was not the dominant reaction after all. Now Ruy Teixeira is pointing to a brand new Democracy Corps survey which shows Kerry having won last night's debate handily. This is particularly significant because apparently Democracy Corps uses larger and more representative samples than the other public polls. And their results show Kerry winning by 8 points, and making a particularly strong showing among independents, undecideds, and in swing states. So maybe I am the demographic after all. At the very least, I'm not the only one who saw last night's debate that way.