Woo Hoo!

Giddy Democrats Celebrate Kerry

The headline for the linked article sums it up, doesn't it? Democrats who have spent the last month resigning ourselves to the notion of four more years of hell had reason to cheer last night.

As someone who has watched just about every presidential debate ever televised, whether in real time or on CSPAN as a retrospective, I have to say that Kerry will now win the election. This sounds insane--one debate and you know who will win?--but bear with me. In every debate, the man who looks more confident, who doesn't get rattled, and who projects a belief in himself ends up winning the election. And no matter what you think of the substance of their answers, there can be no question about who won the style points last night--and we all know which counts more, right? Kerry didn't sound petulant, or angry, or confused; he didn't look annoyed, or disinterested, or flustered. Bush did. The split screen revealed a man incapable of listening to criticism, while the full 90-minute encounter revealed a man of few ideas who, once his talking points were exhausted, frequently stammered and yammered without saying anything. Kerry, who often seems to prattle on about nothing, last night filled his allotted time with statements that were focused, on point, and comprehensible. He explained his positions, defused some of the criticisms he has faced, and did it all while looking like he belonged on stage. He looked like a man with a vision for a better America, and he used the word "better," as in "I can do better" or "We can do better," several times.

No one who has had that sort of stylistic success in a debate has lost the election that followed. If Kerry can repeat this performance, look for some real shifts in the numbers. Pundits have been quietly saying for months that swing voters usually break big for one candidate or the other and do so in the last month of the election. If this is how that month starts, which way do you think they're likely to break? I'm feeling a lot more optimistic on this day, a month from Election Day, that they're about to break my way.