I thought it was telling that the Prez felt compelled to vehemently ask for thirty more seconds during Thursday night's debate to reiterate, word for word, exactly what he'd said before Kerry gave his rebuttal. And the reiteration was only different in one way: the Prez was desperate, sputtering and exasperated when he said, wrong war, wrong place, wrong time.

Did we need to hear this almost a dozen times and never really hear any kind of strategy from the Prez?

The Prez kept saying his job is "hard work." One count had him saying this ten times.

So what I got from all of this is that Kerry gave thoughtful and somewhat detailed explanations that stayed within the time limit. Bush kept repeating his applause lines from stump speeches.

The problem with repeating your stump speech at a debate is the audience. The debate is ninety minutes for a reason. It gives the candidates to expand beyond slogans and poster messages. When you squander that time by endlessly repeating yourself, it gives off the impression you don't have anything to say.

And this debate was about the Prez's bread and butter. He's been running on Homeland Security, the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq (although he would prefer you think of all of this as the same thing).

Newsweek polls about the "winner" of the debate show some interesting numbers:
Kerry won: 61%
Bush won: 19%
It was a tie: 18%

I guess 2% thought someone else was in the room.

But the point here is this: Bush supporters, which number right around 50% of the electorate from what I've seen, didn't like what they saw on Thursday night. I thought he was verging on self-parody, but I'm biased. I'm not an undecided voter. I wondered--mostly because I'm in a rock band where we repeat many lyrics--if the repetition emboldened or dismayed Bush supporters. If somehow the endless repetition became the only thing people remembered, and thus thought was the most relevant information of the evening.

62 million-plus people in the United States watched this debate. This was at least fifteen million more than watched the first debate in 2000. These numbers make me feel good. It makes me think that we the people are actually thinking about this election. And that's good. If anything, the worst we can have from this election is someone elected by an uninformed public. As I've said before, it doesn't take much to vote. But you can't just vote, you have to know what you're voting for or against.

To be honest, the Prez did what I'd come to expect from his public appearances for neutral audiences. He came with no new information, no new strategy and a lot of arrogance. He's a horrible public speaker, and he seems to think this is OK.

Well, to use his words against him, being President is hard work.

You have to learn how to communicate with people outside your little circle. In this case, you have to communicate to our entire country (and the world, for that matter). I'm sorry if you don't like to do this--and from the number of press conferences Bush has had, he doesn't. But sometimes you have to do things at your job that you don't like to do.

I, myself, have this problem. There are some things I have to do at my meager job that I'd rather not. I don't make $400K a year, and I don't have the authority to send kids off to their deaths. I expect something more from a President in power than empty rhetoric and campaign slogans. I expect someone to demonstrate real leadership and real compassion--not just short sound bites that are full of fury, but, end the end, signify nothing.

Matt Worley hopes the Kerry wave remains high for another month.