He's pretty flexible. Guess that explains how his head gets so far up his ass.

When one prepares for a debate, the normal routine is to research one's opponent's positions on various issues, and research the truth underneath his statements and claims that support those positions. Then devise various approaches to show the weaknesses or misrepresentations contained therein. Also, one must double check one's own positions, and the facts being stated in their support, and to anticipate the various ways one's opponent might attack those positions. A debate, legitimately prepared this way by both sides, provides a valuable insight into the pros and cons of each candidate's position. Assuming both are adequately prepared and reasonably articulate, witnesses to the debate go away the data they need to make an appropriate judgement of each participant.

But what happens if participant K brings yet another new position on every issue he has previously discussed, each one just as inadequate and unworkable as all the preceding ones? How would one expect his opponent B to respond, except with abject frustration to a) cockamamie propositions opponent B has just heard for the first time (and and opponent K probably heard for the first time 5 days before) and b) to the practiced and rehearsed total confidence projected by opponent K to which opponent B would be expected to respond in a like manner, knowing that the only people this impossible situation will fool to opponent K's benefit is unknowledgeable, paying-attention-for-the-first-time undecided voters! . That isn't a debate. It's mayhem. And an insidious strategy, albeit clever one, at that.

One more thing. What aged, senile, too-old-to-help-the-Bush-family-anymore moron allowed Jim Lehrer, for God's sake, to make up the questions? Can you spell P-B-S???? That's tantamount to political suicide.

Rasmussen still has Bush healthy, two post-debate nights reporting.

Don't panic: Kerry turning out to be a functioning member of the species must be expected to cause a small stir. Bush just has to get back to reminding us the ways he's not.

Go look at Charles' Photoshopping of the latest tarmac-play.

The story of the Newsweek poll is not the breakdown by party ID or the "bump" for Kerry.

The real story is the size of Kerry's "bump" versus the shift in Democratic party ID relative to the previous Newsweek poll.

Despite a 12-point swing towards Democrats, Kerry saw only an 8-point shift in support. I cannot for the life of me figure out why so many on the Left see that as cause for celebration.

Newsweek is a demonstrable fraud

http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2004/10/02/a-promise-fulfilled-by-evan-thomas/

From Rathergate to Pollgate: Newsweek’s Uses Pathetically Fraudulent Polling to Boost Kerry by 15 Points and Create the “Kerry Comeback”
Filed under: General, War, Polling, New Media, Red Shift — Jack Risko @ 6:01 pm on 10/2/2004 Edit This
Newsweek editor Evan Thomas promised Kerry a boost of 15 points,in his election bid against George Bush and so far Mr. Thomas is doing a good job of delivering as the campaign reaches the home stretch. Four weeks ago, we reported in this space the Newsweek poll that had Bush up 52% to 41%. Today, the Newsweek poll among registered voters has it 46% for Bush, 49% for Kerry. So in the last month, Mr Thomas’s man is up 8%, and the President is down 6%, so Newsweek has so far delivered on getting John Kerry a 14 point swing – almost home!

We noted a couple of days after reporting last month’s poll that the big Bush lead of 11% among registered voters was not obtained honestly, but by manipulating the poll sample by oversampling Republicans, in order to subsequently report a Kerry comeback. That is precisely what has happened.

Newsweek cooked the books in its fraudulent poll a month ago, and we have no reason to believe that it is not cooking its results again, both to sell magazines and to boost its favored candidate. It is no coincidence that the poll numbers are released just in time for the Sunday yak-fests.

If you subscribe to Newsweek, this would be a perfectly appropriate moment to stop doing so, unless of course you like being manipulated by newsmen with an aggressive and dishonest agenda. Oh, you thought Dan Rather was the only egregious one? One look at this Beldar post should cure you of that misguided notion.

The Simple Methodology of Creating a Fraudulent Poll

From LGF, Powerline, and lots of other places we have a breakdown of Dems and Reps in the two polls, and talk about a pathetic forgery: these polls make Bill Burkett look like Rembrandt or Picasso. Take a gander from LGF:

September 11, 2004: NEWSWEEK POLL

391 Republicans (plus or minus 6)
300 Democrats (plus or minus 7)
270 Independents (plus or minus 7)

NEWSWEEK POLL: First Presidential Debate

345 Republicans (plus or minus 6)
364 Democrats (plus or minus 6)
278 Independents (plus or minus 7)

You don’t need an 800 on the SAT or a degree in statistics to follow what Newsweek did to cook up these fake results. In the most recent poll, R’s go 89% for Bush, D’s go 86% Kerry (with I’s splitting 37/42 R/D, or about even). Follow me: the whole result of the poll is dictated by how many Republicans and Democrats you include in your sample – that’s it, that’s the ball game.

In the first poll, 57% of the sample was Republican versus Democrat, so Bush won big. In the second poll 51% of the sample was Democrat versus Republican, So Kerry won narrowly. This is a poor joke, rank hucksterism, patent medicine from the back of a wagon. Newsweek is playing the readers of Newsweek for fools.

Newsweek is committing no crime in hawking these phony polls, since they are forging nothing. However, if you believe them, you are guilty of being too dumb to breathe.

Getting the numbers Newsweek wants means manipulating the process of polling

This, via Kerry Spot, from Political Vice Squad, on Newsweek’s Saddam-like torturing of the numbers and the polling process so that it can get the results it wants:

[T]his “poll” strictly was limited to the “Pacific and Mountain time zones [on Thursday night].” In other words, registered voters from the following states completely were excluded: Texas, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana, and the entire old south.

And comments from PVS’s reader Oak Leaf:

It is problematic that the men who were surveyed support Kerry 47% to 45%. Not even Bob Dole did this poorly in 1996. This indicates that they undersampled Republican men. This would, incidentally, make sense in light of the fact that almost all of the sample was done on Friday. What are large swaths of Republican men doing on Friday nights in those red states in the fall? A. During the day they are working; B. During the evening they are at HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAMES….[Kerry] has an insignificant lead among women and Independents…but he also has a similar lead among men.

Revised and Extended Conclusion

This poll is actually very good news for President Bush, exactly the opposite of the impression that Newsweek is trying to convey. The poll was taken at times and in places specifically to exclude Republican men, in the West on Thursday, on Friday evening, and on a weekend, so that Newsweek could cobble together enough Democrats and as few Republican men as a percent of the poll to produce the numbers it needed.

However, even with those heroic efforts, the President still looks to be in great shape, since, with all of the shenanigans that Newsweek pulled, it only has women breaking 48/44 Kerry, which number would ensure a Bush victory.

At this point, the left will celebrate anything that isn't a complete ass-whupping. Kerry did well on Thursday night, but he's still got a way to go.

Look for him, now that he did well, to get arrogant and return to his usual pomposity. That's his standard M.O. He's much more obnoxious when he thinks he's doing well, than when he's losing.

Deona - the point of debates is to, like in war games the military does, business decisions, court contests - show up in circumstances not knowing exactly what your opponent will do - but be able to think on your feet, react, and push a strategy and the strengths you have, and convince the people you need to convince that you and your efforts constitute the better choice.

I did debate, and part of the strategy, as in war games, is to not be entirely predictable. You can never scout and know exactly how a good opponent will behave, because they know you are scouting, and they adapt.

Bush was entirely predictable. Kerry was not.

George picked a bad night to start sniffing glue again.

You can rail on Baker, but it was Rove that said 3 debates, and lets move the debate on Bush's biggest strength - war on terror - up to the front so he pounds Kerry so badly the next two debates, in areas Bush is really weak in, don't matter. Blame Rove for that one. Blame Bush for apparantly not prepping, being mysteriously low-energy and indifferent, and showing up not mentally ready to defend himself and his policies other than by rote repetition of past stump speech sound bites.

Now Kerry has 2 debates left to pummel Bush's tax cut, stem cell, and other domestic policies. We will see if Bush realizes this is serious and can regroup. Or claim laryngitis and send Cheney in his stead.

Bush might be bailed out by the US military. If they follow up Samarra with Falluja and voters see us winning in Iraq again, it would go a long way..

If the Drudge posting is correct, how will it look if Kerry cheated at the debate?
http://www.drudgereport.com/dnc57.htm

Gotta love Drudge.

Jack Risko makes some very good points. Newsweek's methodology and motivation for this particular poll are somewhat suspect. For example, if the survey was really drawn from only the Pacific and Mountain Time zones, then 56% of the population sampled is from California, and 66% comes from California and Washington. That explains the sudden "jump" in Democratic party ID much better than a theoretical shift based on debate results.

Also, as UnPo notes, additional confirmation that something is wrong with Newsweek's numbers can be seen in Rasmussen's tracking poll, which, shows a much smaller shift. In fact, today's number shows Bush pretty much back to the 4 pt. lead which has been his recent high-water mark with Rasmussen.

My own feeling is that while Kerry did OK on style in the debate (although his substance is abhorrent to me), it was not enough to produce a dramatic shift in the race. However, I will not be taking this particular bit of analysis to the bank until I see a week's worth of polling from sources whose methodology I respect.

Cedarford, thanks for the comments. Well said and helpful.

Perhaps what I should have tried to do is use a typical high-school debate format as an example, where a position is defined, and at the last minute one participant is given the negative to argue, the other the positive, each having prepared for either.

If one debater argues both sides (skillfully, with "authority?", and convincingly??) during his presentation (and there are no judges to stop him), while the other debater is trying to make some sensible response, and the audience is only impressed with delivery, the debate becomes a senseless spectacle, not a debate. Bush's strategy was to defend his position. Kerry's was to confuse Bush and impress 65 million undecided voters without a clue who had not paid attention until that night.

It's always been hard to win a shell game.

Speaking of pessimism.

Deona -

Watched the debate along with 2 other couples and the 19-yr old student son of one of the couples. 3 Reps, 3 Dems, one slacker.

I saw Kerry not really try to blather and confuse, but to attack position after position of Bush's and then say he knew how to do it better - while Bush responded to maybe 2 of 20 Kerry attack lines. And kept up his repetitious mantra of "mixed messages", "Hard work", "stay resolved".

Vote? 7-0 Bush lost on style. 7-0 he lost on intelligence and ability to articulate. 4-3 he lost on substance. (Because Kerry has so many terrible inconsistencies that he couldn't resolve them even if Bush had spent 90 minutes clapping for Kerry - hence "global test", "War a mistake, but no soldiers are dying for a mistake"

Some of us had to work, so we had to keep talk afterwards short.

But one guy said, "I hate to say it, because it sounds arrogant, but I could have done better than Bush. He just let Kerry make attack after attack, and didn't respond." I said it may be arrogant, but as a Republican, I too, I think could have done better, honestly.

Then the corker came from his wife: "Well, I know I could have defended Bush's policies and looked better doing it, and I'm a Democrat that doesn't like many of his policies but apparantly know enough that I could stick up for them better than Bush did. And he should have had some coffee and had his mouth fixed up so he couldn't smirk - before the debate."

Cedarford's quite a guy. It must be nice to have seven independent personalities in one body, such that they can get together to conduct political debates.

cedarford: George picked a bad night to start sniffing glue again.

Looks like cedarford's projecting again. I wonder which one of his personalities does the glue-sniffing.

The outcome of the debate is not too surprising, given that Kerry was "slipped" the questions beforehand by some enterprising young leftard working for the completely non-partisan Lehrer camp.

Sailor, any proof? I mean, I believe it's entirely within the realm of the possible, but I'd love a cite to back it up.

It appears that Kerry took a piece of paper out of his jacket, in violation of debate rules, and unfolded it onto the podium in front of him.

If inspection of the videotape confirms that it was written material - a cheat sheet - American voters would find that contemptible.

Zang Fei - Pity you are a partisan like your counterparts at the Democratic Underground.

One can be for a politician without saying they are all but the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. One doesn't have to defend every policy of a politician as "singular strokes of genius". One doesn't have to extoll every word out of their favorite politician's mouth, a la North Korean style, as "blessings from the Great Leader".

One can even admit it when their "Beloved Maximum Leader - be it Howard Dean, Noble Algore, or G.W. Bush - gets their butt kicked and head handed to them.

Of course, on the other hand, Zang Fei, there are spinmeisters trained to blindly cheerlead and lie for their "man". But they get paid for their whoredom.