HELLO I AM THE PRESIDENT

AND I DON'T HAVE ANY CONTROL OVER THE MODULATION OF MY VOICE.

THAT MEANS I'M A POWERFUL LEADER. ALSO, I DIDN'T SMIRK THE ENTIRE DEBATE. THAT MEANS I WIN.

Instead of all of these different formats and pages of guidelines for the debates, we should just strap electric wires to the testicles of the two candidates and send a shock every time one of them tells a lie or makes a grossly misleading statement, as determined by a panel of researchers afterwards.

Of course, if this system were in place tonight, these researchers would be responsible for killing the President, and for giving Kerry a painful yet slightly erotic tingle, but we all have to make sacrifices in the war on terror.

I try to look at the debates in the eyes of one of these mythical undecided voters the media keeps talking about, and in that sense I can't imagine this debate will sway anyone making a decision based on voting for a clear victor. They both did well enough to take that level of superficial analysis out of play. In fact, I think Bush put on one of the best performances he could have, considering he was up against his own petulance, the pressure of needing to do a significantly better job than last time, and a record so abysmal it can only be defended through misrepresenting his own actions and words as well as those of his opponent.

The reason Bush didn't "win" is because Kerry did at least as well. I think there are two components to debates: who is the better tactical debater, and who connects well with the audience. Sometimes these are related, sometimes not. I think Kerry did much better than Bush in the tactical category and either matched him or came close to matching him with connecting to the audience, which was the one dangerous area for him.

One of Kerry's smartest moves was to tie many of his answers by giving examples that related to Missouri. It's surprising to see how the man supposed to connect better with people mention the state once or twice, in general terms, and the "cold fish" be the one to take the time to showing he understands how these issues affect the voters of Missouri. And that's the wild card here. While I don't think this debate changes much on a national scale, it may have helped Kerry in Missouri specifically because he personalized the topics to the state.

In a way, the end of this debate matches the end of the Vice-Presidential one. Two fairly even performances where partisans from both sides can argue that their candidate is the winner, but where one side has a potential advantage in that their candidate didn't tell a string of lies and misstatements that a moderately interested voter can't find out for himself in tomorrow's paper.

I don't know if the Bush-Cheney campaign got any fallout for Cheney saying he never met Edwards or said he never tried to connect Iraq to 9/11, so I can't say if Bush will lose any points for telling some outrageous whoppers. But I will say this right now: any half-decent fact-checking article will show that Bush lied and misrepresented things much more than Kerry. If I'm wrong, I'll print this post up, eat it, poop it out, and then put my poop on a birthday cake and sign to myself, "Happy Birthday, Poophead!"

Now, if I can drop the detached analyst voice for a moment and tell what I thought as a partisan. I thought Kerry rocked. There were a few times during the debate that Kerry said something to Bush that made me yell, "Bitch, you just got slapped!" My Mom, who I was watching the debate with and had her attention split between it and her email, would then say, "What happened? Who got slapped?" I wanted to avoid explaining the whole thing so I would just say, "The bitch, Mom. The bitch. I'll explain later."

There were also many times he responded in a way that balanced eloquence with intelligence that reinforced my belief that this man is going to make a great President.

I realize that the belief that Kerry will be a great President is one even many of the people who will vote for him do not hold. And I forget the pithy phrase for blind belief not based in reality ("drinking from the same punchbowl?"), but that could be going on here. Especially with statements like "he will be a great President."

But the more I read about his past, what he's done with his life, the issues he's believes in, and the way he thinks and works with people, the more I have shifted from lukewarmly supporting him to liking them to my current view that he has what it takes to be one of the best that we've had in decades.