Pundits give Kerry the edge, for beating their expectations

By Nick Anderson and Emma Schwartz
Los Angeles Times

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WASHINGTON — After the presidential candidates gave their final statements last night, television commentators and instant-pollsters took over. With some caveats, several said John Kerry had made headway against President Bush.

CBS' Bob Schieffer said Bush looked "somewhat defensive in the beginning," while the Massachusetts senator "got off to a very good start."

"Did Kerry connect?" CNN's Jeff Greenfield asked. "I think the answer here was yes. ... People who expected to see a wordy, conflicted, self-contradictory senator didn't."

On Fox News Channel, analyst Fred Barnes said: "I have to say John Kerry did better than I expected. He was very good, very articulate." But Barnes, referring to the Iraq war, the debate's central theme, said he didn't think Kerry made "a strong case that he has a plan, a strong plan, that will work in Iraq."

Another Fox analyst, Morton Kondracke, said of Bush and Iraq: "The president does have a plan, and I didn't hear him really spell it out well tonight."

ABC analyst Mark Halperin said Bush at times appeared angry. "It's not usually a very becoming posture for a candidate," Halperin said. But NBC anchor Tom Brokaw noted that one of the president's "better moments" was when he pledged, in blunt words, to hunt down terrorists.

Snap polls on ABC and CBS showed that Kerry fared better than Bush among certain samples of viewers. But CBS anchor Dan Rather added a caution that such views sometimes change in the days after a debate.

An Annenberg Public Policy Center survey four years ago found that Al Gore was considered the winner of that year's first debate by a plurality of viewers. But Bush gained favor in the days after the debate among many people who did not watch it.

The post-debate spin on network and cable TV amounted to a high-stakes event in itself. Both campaigns were hoping the televised commentary would help steer public opinion their way.
 
Republicans and Democrats set up elaborate spin operations to influence coverage after the debate. The Democratic Party urged supporters to vote in online polls conducted by the TV networks.

Both campaigns also put surrogates on air. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani plugged Bush; Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. John Edwards, touted Kerry.

Some anchors sought to curb the spin. NBC's Brokaw, for instance, dissected Kerry's pledge to seek international aid for Iraq. Brokaw told Edwards there was no indication that France or Germany were prepared to send troops there.

"It's easy for the challenger to make that promise," Brokaw told Edwards. "It's much more difficult to deliver on it."