You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.
Kerry seemed far better prepared than Bush, ready to counter the president's points while Bush often repeated himself and at times seemed at a loss for words or defensive. The president even audibly sighed at times. By the time the debate was over, it seemed clear that Kerry had given himself a new lease on life and guaranteed that the campaign has a long way to run. Kerry was rated the clear winner in a CNN/Gallup poll immediately after the debate. It found that 53 percent said Kerry won the debate, compared with 37 percent who gave the nod to Bush.. . . . Ready? The New York Post. I would venture to say if the Post is announcing that a Democratic candidate clearly won a debate that it's a fairly substantial victory.
Although the story follows those paragraphs with this: "But the victory didn't help Kerry in the overall race  an ABC News poll last night before the debate showed Bush with a 4-point edge, and a survey of the same group of voters after the debate found the president's margin hadn't changed." I'm not sure why a survey of the same people before and after the election should mean anything. Unless these were undecided voters there's very little chance that even a great debate would change their opinion on two candidates that stand at such opposite ends of the spectrum. As has been reported online fairly often lately, generally the polls are hard to believe. To begin with many poll less than 1,000 people, the minimum for a survey to be considered scientific. You can read more at The Left Coaster and Zogby International.