Debate Pregame and Postgame Thread

[Dooby]

Scattershooting:

We have a lot of rules, I expect most of them to be broken. I fully expect Kerry to ask Bush a direct question or two and I fully expect neither Bush nor the moderation to bring up his violation of the rules. The question will be whether Bush responds to the direct question.

I fully expect a couple of domestic policy question that are tangentially related to foreign policy questions. Pick two of these three: Foreign outsourcing of jobs; re-importation of prescription drugs and immigration reform.

I think starting with foreign policy is a bad move for Kerry, but not because it is Bush's strong suit. Generally, it is difficult for a challenger to talk foreign policy; all he can say is I'd do it differently. Kerry really can't get into specifics. If Kerry just talks negatively about Bush foreign policy, I don't see him making any headway.

But to me, the big question is whether we will see the complete "Dean-ization" of John Kerry. A long time ago, I talked about angry democrats wanting someone who was angry too and willing to call the President rightfully or wrongly a liar and a cheater, yell and scream at him, and accuse him of stealing Florida and lying to the american people in Iraq and do it to his face. The problem with that, as I said at the time, was that the only peron that would do that is a crazy nut. At the end of the day, Dean faltered for that same reason: he came across as a crazy nut and the democrats simply weren't willing to take that step and embarass themselves. Well, Kerry saw himself falter out of the conventions and faced with a demoralized base, tried to rev up the angry democrat base, and thus began his "Dean-ization". The problem, of course, with "Dean-ization" is once you do it, you have to go "all-in". It is like buying into a conspiracy theory, you can't just take a little, you have to buy the whole thing no matter how crazy it gets. You can't let up for one second and you are stuck with Bush lied, Bush did it for his father, Bush has ties to Bin Laden, Bush wants a draft, Bush this, Bush that... Will Kerry complete his "Dean-ization" and attack the President on things that the vast majority of the american people believe in and support the President on, or will he reign it in and disappoint part of his base? It will be interesting to watch.