WP: Voters Chew Over Dissected Debates

[kskiska]

By Howard Kurtz

When John Kerry and George W. Bush step off a University of Miami stage at 10:30 tomorrow night, the battle will just be getting under way.

Just ask Chris Lehane, who was Al Gore's spokesman when quickie polls showed his man winning the first debate against Bush by as much as 14 points. But Bush operatives began highlighting small errors Gore had made -- such as saying he had visited Texas with the federal disaster director, not the assistant director -- and calling the network morning shows with examples. By the time the New York Post ran the headline "Liar! Liar!," the media consensus was that a heavy-sighing Gore had blown it.

"We went through the debate thinking Gore had done pretty well," Lehane says. "But the Bush campaign seized on the mistakes and did a pretty effective job of focusing attention on them. That played into the negative story line on Gore."

Says Stuart Stevens, a Bush adviser then and now: "The Gore people were totally convinced they had won overwhelmingly. We were in a room next to them and we could hear them yelling and chanting."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58270-2004Sep28.html

[DeepModem Mom]

1. See this paragraph -- why is our media driven by "Republican carping"???

"Something along those lines happened with July's Democratic convention, which was initially depicted by most reporters and pundits as a solid success. But as Kerry slipped in the polls, the conventional wisdom, driven in part by REPUBLICAN CARPING, became that he had spent too much time talking about his Vietnam service and not enough about his agenda for the country. Now the media routinely describe the Boston gathering as somewhere between a missed opportunity and a flop."