Two competent candidates equals a tie, and a tie, for once, goes to the incumbent. Blame lowered expectations, but the president did better than expected. That's all it takes. Particularly when the press is ready for whatever interpretation best sustains the narrative.

It's strange how much better the President has been on domestic issues. Kerry's got plenty of figures to throw around, but the central Republican domestic message -- that everything will work better if only we'd spend less money on it -- is an attractive one, and I'm not sure Kerry's been able to overcome it.

I'd say Kerry is in trouble. I hope I'm wrong -- I'm not exactly drooling on Catherine's shoulder, but I am, admittedly, violating the blogging prime directive. Still, I suspect that Bush will draw a narrow lead out of this debate.

are they wearing THE SAME TIE????
DID THEY learn nothing from teresa and laura wearing the same suit at the first debate?
DISASTER.

i just felt the momentum change in the debate. bush is stuttering. kerry is gaining back composure and grace. also, i had that other glass of wine, and it was awesome. my sweet potatoes are almost done. martha says to put a dollop of sour cream on them and sprinkle them with brown sugar. delicious!

tommy's, like, TOTALLY WASTED. i just saw him down three shots of vodka and 4 belgian beers, and right now he's drooling on my arm. it's gross. he doesn't know what he's talking about in regards to the debate. KERRY IS WINNING. SPIN, LITTLE GIRL, SPIN.

no, i kid. i'm actually totally wasted myself. bush is doing well. i think kerry is also doing well. i thought his answer in regards to abortion was great. i am also cooking some KICKASS sweet potatoes. i got this great recipe off of marthastewart.com. that woman is awesome. who else can tell you how to make a perfect fall table entertainment party ohmygod i am so drunk well it's time for another glass of wine! mmm. wine. bush would ban wine if he won. REMEMBER THAT, FUCKERS.

George Bush is winning this debate. Kerry's out-of-the-blue invocation of Mary Cheney's name is frankly despicable, and his answers in general sound like the usual carping of a challenger against an incumbent.

How has Bush suddenly gained a mastery of rhetoric and statistics? I won't for a moment imagine that this is the normal state of affairs: our President has been consistently incoherent for most of the last four years. A few more practice sessions with the hidden earpiece? Maybe, although I don't believe it. A moment of lucidity in the midst of whatever degenerative condition the President may be suffering from (be it biological or merely ideological)? It's possible. More likely the President's advisers finally got scared, and decided to put some time into debate prep.

Kerry's been dealing with an outclassed opponent. I hope he manages to adapt by the end of this debate, but at the half-hour mark, Bush's sudden competence is giving him serious problems.

this just totally gives me the warm fuzzies:

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at Democrats. The focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken.

like susan has said in the past, this is the sort of crap she should be dealing with in, like, THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES NOT THE UNITED FRICKING STATES OF AMERICA.