Can Winning the Presidential Debates Affect the Election Outcome? A critique of the 1st debate and how it will affect each candidate. By Rachel Webber

Essay by golfingkiddoHigh School, 12th grade October 2004

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Can Winning the Presidential Debates Affect the Election Outcome?

In the first presidential debate, which took place on October 1st, 2004, according to the majority of reporters and "undecided voters" John Kerry was deemed the winner. However a fair amount of articles and a large amount of "undecided" voters said that George Bush won the debate, who really won and what affect could this have on the polls.

In two main surveys taken immediately after the elections, Kerry was considered the winner by fairly obvious measures and by most "undecided" voters. CNN / Galllup Polls showed Kerry ahead, 53 to 37. A CBS poll released showed Kerry with 44, Bush with 26, and had 30 voters (about 40%), condider it a tie. "The campaign now begins in earnest," said Sen., Ted Kennedy, Kerry's colleague from Massachusetts. "John Kerry took command of the race". The debate seemed to have a lot more focus on Iraq than foreign policy, the "topic" for the first debate, and on retrospective, look much more and the past records and actions of the two candidates as opposed to looking forward into the future and what they will accomplish.

When it came to ideas of how to get troops out of Iraq, bush lacked the plans of how to successfully do it, and was a clear area where Bush lost, according to the San Francisco gate. Kerry stated he had a plan but didn't explain it in detail. Kerry also said that he would help to draw more countries into Iraq, an idea a majority of Americans support. Another key point was that when Bush in a split-screen, while Kerry was talking, he was continoulsy twitching and glaring at Kerry and seemed almost annoyed by the constant challenges Kerry seemed to put the president upto. Throughout...