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On Tuesday, Some Reasons You Should Vote Against Bush

October 30, 2004 / posted in Politics / No Comments

I’ve been way too busy to write as much as I’d have liked about politics over the last few months. This bothers me deeply, because I believe this is one of the most important elections we’ve seen since, well, we kicked out the elder Bush. If there’s any undecided voters among the dozen or so people who seem to actually read this thing, I hope I give you some guidance here.
The plan is simple: both of our candidates are controversial. There’s a lot to hate, and little to love, about both. Makes you reminisce about the days of Clinton and Reagan, who both had much to hate but also much to love, huh?
Because this election is so much about hating and demonizing the other side, I’m not going to try to talk you into loving my guy. You probably already hate him. Maybe I can make you hate the other guy more. So far I know, everything I say here is true — I realize that’s not trendy these days, but it’s all I’ve got.
I’m going to cover a few specific points here:
* How Bush is not a conservative
* That Bush is all about tax-and-spend
* That Bush is against taking responsibility for, and suffering the consequences of, one’s actions
* How Bush isn’t really serious about national security
* Why you shouldn’t care about cultural issues, like gay marriage
* Why things under Bush can’t get better
h3. How Bush Is Not A Conservative
Barry Goldwater. Ronald Reagan. Dwight D. Eisenhower. These men were conservatives. They did three things:
# Keep government out of business
# Keep government small
# Loves the free market
Bush’s record is clear. He:
# Believes government should decide what business’s business is
# Has massively expanded the Federal government’s size and reach
# Is against the free market and prefers selective government control of the economy
h4. Bush Believes Government Should Decide What Business’s Business Is
Bush gave business some great tax breaks, it’s true, but he gave these tax breaks to manufacturing, not to service, not to consultants, not to car washes or McDonalds’ franchisees or graphic designers. Sure, we’ve had targeted tax cuts for years, but isn’t that unconservative? Shouldn’t the market decide where businesses should do business? Should one business pay less in taxes than others just because we feel like it, or should all businesses start on the same level playing field and the market decide where to allocate capital? Remember, manufacturing businesses profit disproportionately from infrastructure like roads and water and power when compared with, say, a hair salon. Why should the manufacturer pay less for the construction and maintenance of this infractructure than another business who uses it less does?
This government interventionist focus goes beyond tax breaks. For years, the Bush administration has given subsidies to select industries (the steel industry, for instance). These subsidies protect these industries from foreign competition. While, in some cases, the foreign industries are supported by their own governments, in other cases (steel, again), many American companies are just less efficient. Why not let the market tell us what businesses America should be in? Why inefficiently allocate capital to industries in which America cannot compete? And if you’re going to, how about you at least have a guy in charge who’ll have a free and open discussion about it, rather than, say, a secret closed-door meeting with Big Energy?
h4. Bush Has Massively Expanded The Federal Government’s Size And Reach
The TSA is a massive Federalization of previously privately-run jobs. If the free market is more efficient, why not let free market companies handle airline security? Why make the government do it inefficiently?
States’ Rights are also threatened. Oregon voters, by an incredible margin, decided to legalize limited assisted suicide. Attorney General John Ashcroft said whoa, we don’t respect Oregon’s prerogative to make laws that conflict with Federal law. States’ Rights have long been a backbone of conservative thought; Barry Goldwater was but one of their most vocal supporters.
The No Child Left Behind Act is another gigantic Federal power-grab. Until this bill was passed, education was an issue for the states. No Child Left Behind puts the Feds substantially in charge of what your school has to do and where it has to spend its money, regardless of what the community wants. And there are no new Federal dollars to go with these new requirements — No Child Left Behind is what we used to call an “unfunded mandate.” If you’re stuck with a bigger government, how about you at least have the President admit it to you?
h4. Bush Is Against The Free Market And Prefers Selective Federal Control Over The Economy
Conservatives spend a lot of time bitching about regulation. Well, the alternative to having the government regulate business is having the market regulate business. The market does this in many ways. One way is through the courts. Throughout history, the courts have existed for two reasons:
# So that the Man can keep you down
# To resolve property disputes and thus guarantee the safety of private property.
Don’t believe me? Just look at a country without a functional court system, like Russia. Private property safe there? Didn’t think so.
But, under the name of “tort reform”, Bush wants to regulate the way in which the free market arbitrates business disputes. Is that small-c conservative? No, the small-c conservative wants to let the market decide business disputes. Sure, some of those awards in big court cases seem expensive, but remember they’re set by the free market — the free speech of lawyers, the free commercial impressions of jurors, the free financials of the companies involved. When you insert government regulation of awards, well, it’s not free, it’s regulated. How about you vote for someone who at least won’t regulate power away from you and towards the big multibillion-dollar companies?
h3. Bush Is All About Tax-And-Spend
Bush has run up a tremendous budget deficit with his tax cuts, his war, his TSA, his greatest increase in non-defense discretionary spending in decades. There’s only one way for the Federal government to pay off a deficit: by taking in more money. There’s only one way for the Federal government to take in more money: by collecting more in taxes (borrowing only defers the need to take in more money, although it may allow the debt to be paid off in cheaper future dollars those dollars will still be needed at some time in the future, and let’s hope that they’re not that cheap unless you like some Carteresque inflation down the line).
There are actually two ways to collect more in taxes:
# Have rollicking economic growth such that the increase in personal and corporate income is large enough to push up tax collections without forcing an increase in the marginal rate of taxation
# Raise taxes
Anybody willing to put money on 7-10 sustained years of late ’90s-style economic growth? I didn’t think so. So what’s left? Yep, we’ve got to raise taxes to pay off the debt we’re accumulating now. There’s just no other way. Taxes now, or taxes later, either way we pay. How about you vote for somebody who can be fiscally responsible this time?
h3. Bush Is Against Taking Responsibility For Your Actions And Suffering The Consequences
Well, he’s for taking responsibility if you’re a mentally retarded individual who held up a convenience store; then you get electrocuted.
If, however, you oversee a military prison that’s the site of photographed violations of the Geneva Conventions, if said violations embarass the US publicly, and if said violations decrease international support both for the course of action which the US is following and the general idea of American Democracy, well, you consider promoting the guy to be in charge of the US Armed Forces. Really. Oh and you don’t think about firing his boss. Nope, no consequences there.
And when intellegence errors mean that your biggest rationale for launching the biggest war of your administration is not borne out, do you fire anybody? Nope. Do you get behind reform of the intelligence agencies? Nope.
And when terrorists blow up big buildings in your biggest city? No, you don’t support an inquiry, and no, you don’t fire anybody who maybe was supposed to catch said terrorists before they blew anything up.
For as long as I can remember, the GOP has had a clear message: we can only be an adult society as long as people suffer clear consequences for their actions. Further, those consequences serve as a deterrent against future negative actions. Have we deterred behavior that let terrorists into the US, that inaccurately predicted the existence of WMD in Iraq, that resulted in the torture of POWs at Abu Ghraib? Clearly not. How is that conservative? How about you vote for the former DA, John Kerry, who enforced consequences for a living?
h3. Bush Isn’t Serious About National Security
National security is important. This means it must be pursued with:
# Sufficient funding
# Substantial planning
# A multiplicity of approaches
The Bush administration has done none of these. The Iraq war has been marked by a succession of large requests for funds. Not enough armored Humvees? Whose department was in charge of buying them… oh, that’s the Defense Department!
What about planning? There was quite obviously no planning as to what should be done after we won in Afghanistan and Iraq. Planning is basic. It’s a business skill, one that Bush should have learned in b-school. Success and luck are both strongly related to planning; you’ve just got to have it.
The Iraq war has also illustrated the one-dimensional approach favored by the Bush administration. When we failed to get UN Security Council buy-in, was there a backup plan? Was another avenue being followed? Multi-power talks are getting us nowhere with North Korea; are we pursuing any other avenues? Kissinger would have had plans A, B, C and D, and would have been implementing all of them at once. So would Dulles. How about we vote against the person who doesn’t plan and is proud of it? I mean, jeez, Trump would fire the guy.
If the Bush administration took national security seriously, we’d see a serious approach to it. The Clinton administration didn’t take it very seriously, and had a disordered approach; the Bush administration has the same disordered approach. After 9/11, this is criminal.
h3. You Shouldn’t Care About Cultural Issues
Google has let me down. Barack Obama said all this first, but I can’t find the transcript. But here goes:
How many people do you know who make ends meet by working overtime? Bush wants to cut overtime.
How many people do you know in the Reserves or National Guard? These people will be spending a year away from home and away from their jobs
How many people do you know who have lost their job in the last four years? Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to end his term with a net loss of jobs.
How many people do you know who are afraid? When did Bush tell us that everything is ok, that America will overcome?
How many people do you know who are getting married to someone of the same sex?
So why are you voting based on gay marriage?
h3. Why Things Under Bush Can’t Get Better
Because he never admits he’s wrong. It’s trite, it’s cliche, but when was the last time you improved your behavior without first admitting you were wrong? How about never? Things will never change so long as being right is the most important thing. Kerry hasn’t flip-flopped; he’s admitted that he’s wrong and found a new way. We should all be so ready to learn. Vote for the guy who learns from his successes and mistakes, or vote for the current guy, the one who will never change.
h3. Vote For Kerry
Or vote for one of the other candidates, if that makes you feel better. But don’t vote for the false conservative, for the guy who’s soft on national security, for the guy who wants his government in your private property. Vote Kerry, then kick the bastard out in four years if he doesn’t do better. That’s how democracy works.















It’s The Students Who Make It Happen

October 28, 2004 / posted in B-School / No Comments

Just time for a quick note about two really great experiences I’ve had in the past two days:
* GMA Marketing Wine & Cheese Roundtable Night
* Entrepreneur’s Happy Hour
h3. GMA Marketing Wine & Cheese Roundtable Night
The student-organized “Wine & Cheese Roundtable Night”:http://www.marshall.usc.edu/clubs/GMA.cfm?doc_id=3596 brought some great companies to Marshall, and gave us all the opportunity to speak one-on-one with marketing executives from those companies. I, hopefully, made some great contacts that will help me in my internship search, and learned a lot of great information about CPG and technology marketing. All thanks to my great mentor, Sandin Wang, one of the organizers of the event.
h3. Entrepreneur’s Happy Hour
This is a little casual event that I suggested to my Core Rep at the Entrepreneur and Venture Management Association. The EVMA has some more serious and focused events for committed Entrepreneurs, but I’m not nearly that dedicated; I don’t want to fall short on some committment and make Marshall look bad. Our Core Rep, Carlie Yapp, got a bunch of us together at the end of the day and we got drinks at the Raddison across the street. We bounced ideas around some and moved in great directions. Will great businesses come out of this down the road? I wouldn’t bet against it with that set of folks.
It’s times like this that I feel lucky to be at Marshall. It’s nice to be in a good school, but it’s best to be around good people. Good people get stuff done, and I know I’ll have tons of opportunities over the next two years because of that.















Unexpected Value Added

October 20, 2004 / posted in B-School / 2 Comments

Yesterday’s Leadership class was actually pretty good. Great, even. That’s a shocker — “Posner”:http://juniorbird.com/archives/000791.html really added some value!
I did benefit disproportionately from the class, it’s true, because I was up there for 30 minutes getting my presenting style critiqued. I actually learned a lot! I wish that I had been prepared in some way (one of the main complaints was that I read directly from my notes, which happened, of course, because I wasn’t prepared), but, honestly, since none of the previous classes had been of any value, I didn’t think there was any justification for me putting the time in to get ready for class. Practicing a speech two or three times can take, well, minutes, and Posner hadn’t even justified that so far.
But he did yesterday. Class was fun, a lot of people got to speak and get critiqued, and Posner was even relatively brief when he talked. Now, I’m saying relatively, here — he still droned on at a few points and lost my attention completely, but the point is that, later, I started paying attention again, _because I thought it might be worth it_. This, folks, may be a breakthrough. We’ll see if he keeps it up!















Leadership Training With The Marines At Camp Pendleton

October 16, 2004 / posted in B-School / 3 Comments

Unlike “other”:http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/042903/war_20030429020.shtml “members”:http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/miami-dade/cities_neighborhoods/south/8120967.htm of my family, I’ve never been particularly inclined to pursue a career in the military. That wasn’t enough to stop me, however, from a fun idea like traveling to the desert and running around to learn about one approach (the Marines’, obviously) to being a leader.
After Finals, on Wednesday, we took a bus down to Camp Pendleton in north San Diego county.

On the way down, we stopped for food. Once we got to Pendleton, three Marines pursuing their MBAs at Marshall spent over an hour helping us to understand Marine history and just how things work when you’re a jarhead. After the presentations, I made a rookie mistake: I volunteered. The Marines have this little trick they play — first they ask for volunteers, then, after you’ve volunteered, they tell you what you volunteered for. I volunteered and ended up being made head of a “fire team,” a group of five pople who would work together on the next day’s challenges.
Then they marched us down to a barracks and bunked all of us men in a “squad bay,” one of those long, open rooms that everybody bunks in:

Everybody chose themselves a bunk bed, or “rack” as the technical term goes:

Every student was issued a sleeping bag, to go with said rack, and in which said student would then spend the hours from 11:30pm lights out to 5:30am reveille. That’s right, 5:30am; that’s the lifestyle that doesn’t attract me. But there was one part of the kit that was attractive, the helmet. Everyone dug the helmet!

Of course, issuing all this “kit” leaves a mess. I volunteered again — this time, to have my fire team count all of the unissued kit and make sure that nobody got charged for any unissued “lost” equipment. I called my fire team around and broke the news soft; I said, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, I got us out of cleaning out the head in the morning. The bad news is, we have to police up the unissued kit.” I think anything sounded good after hearing about “cleaning out the head” (bathroom, including showers, toilets, etc.) and my team tackled the task with enthusiasm and efficiency.
Sleep was harder to get than I’d expected; I was amped up after a whole day of anticipation and, frankly, when you get a few dozen guys in one room you’re guaranteed some snorers. I woke myself up with the start of a snore once and I ended up spending the whole night sleeping on my side to make sure that I didn’t wake anybody.
Morning came too soon; 5:30 is early!

They marched us down the the mess hall where we had eggs and a starch and exactly one meat option, not two. Then they marched us to a classroom for a few hours of instruction on Marine leadership and maneuver warfare.

The morning’s instruction, given by two of our three class Marines and one of the base’s Colonels, was “quite instructive”:http://cleverbird.com/pwyky/MarineCorpsLeadershipPhilosophyandTechniques.

One interesting nugget is that tiredness is frowned upon in the business and education world. You cannot admit you’re tired or fall asleep (not that tons of people don’t sleep in class). For Marines, however, it’s different: a tired Marine gets up and stands in the back of the room. It’s hard to fall asleep or fail to pay attention when you’re standing up!
Then we were off to our field exercises.

Once in the field, we had a woman added to our five-man fire team, and then we were set off to our leadership exercises.

The Marines believe that leadership consists substantially of making quick decisions under time pressure, communicating those decisions to those you supervise, and taking feedback from your team, in a constant feedback loop. Each fire team from Marshall spent 15 minutes trying to complete each of several challenges that Marines use during basic training for all recruits. Each challenge has physical and mental components; there is a clearly-articulated objective, a physical situation, and a set of tools each squad has available. The team, and, especially, the leader, must figure out how to use the tools to overcome the situation and accomplish the objective. Some of these challenges include:
* Get ammunition past a “destroyed bridge”, a series of posts, representing bridge supports, a few feet off of the ground. We had to get an gravel-filled ammo box representing, well, an ammo box, from one end to the other, using three boards.

In this exercise, we learned that I’m a pretty good leader (and I enjoy leading!), and that my balance ain’t that good.
* Get medical supplies through past another “destroyed bridge”, some chains hung from two metal rails. We had one wooden plank to get the gravel-filled ammo box representing the medical supplies from one end to the other.

In this exercise, we learned a really valuable lesson: despite starting strong, we ended up failing because we didn’t keep our leader out of the action. With the leader too caught up in the moment-to-moment details, we got stuck moving from one opportunity to another and lost the big picture. It’s very important to give the leader space to have perspective!
* Rescue a wounded man, represented by a dummy, from inside a “destroyed sewer”, a large metal pipe with a platform past one end. We completed this one in record time and overcame our weak start — almost every group was too indecisive and took too long on their first challenge — to succeed at three challenges in a row (we ended up completing four out of seven successfully).
* Carry a wounded soldier (played by a real person!) across a raging river (played by gravel), walking on one metal wire and holding onto another wire above your head. In this event we learned several things: that a fireman’s carry is an easy way to carry a person, that poor Candace is okay if she’s repeatedly dropped on her head, and that it’s no good when the leader of a challenge just disappears.
* Place an explosive (guess what — represented by a gravel-filled ammo box) in an enemy blockhouse that we had to enter from above using only two wooden logs. Remember, you can’t touch the red parts!

In this exercise, we learned that one of our team members was a really strong gymnast who could lift himself up easily over these wooden logs. Also, that it was good if most of us just shut up and let people do their job. Also, Dierdre learned that it sucked to drag Fred:

Oh yes, Fred. So, if you died — touched the red-painted part or the gravel, which represented water — you could only get your life back by dragging Fred 100 yards down a dusty dirt track and back again. There were four Freds so four people could go at once, each dragging a 200-pound dummy in a flak jacket.

Sometimes, whole teams would die and everybody would get to drag a dummy.

You couldn’t get away with anything because the Marines were always watching (they were also watching for safety violations):

In a break between challenges they fed us a tasty bag lunch with chips and cookies and a roast beef sandwich. However, I believe that the below photo tells us a lot about the military:

At the end, of the day, everybody was wiped out from the physical and mental (!) exertion:

But learning from your experiences is half the battle. So, led by our class Marines, we had a debriefing.

Ooo, everybody watch the “Cobra”:http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ah-1.htm!

Everybody seemed to agree, in each exercise, we had to carry our our “OODA Loop”:http://cleverbird.com/pwyky/OODALoop quickly and efficiently, devise a plan, adapt dynamically, but keep an overall “vision.” Decisive leadership and a real “head” to our body was a must. The leader had to listen to his or her subordinates, let them develop plans, and choose from and develop these plans, then make sure the plan was properly implemented in the heat and disorder of the moment. Every subordinate had to take initiative and speak up as the situation developed. In the end, I felt our team was strong and effective. We only failed on three tasks, one because we were just getting started and one because a distracted team member didn’t watch what they were doing. With more practice, we could have suceeded at all three.
Then it was off home. On the bus back, everybody could only think of one thing:

In case it’s not obvious, I really enjoyed my leadership training experience. While I don’t think that Marine leadership techniques are the end-all of leadership, I think there was a lot good there to learn (see my “notes”:http://cleverbird.com/pwyky/MarineCorpsLeadershipPhilosophyandTechniques, if you haven’t already). I got a lot to think about, in terms of the importance of decisiveness, in terms of how to think, in terms of the importance of values and a basic, consistent approach, and in terms of how I’d best relate to those I supervise in the future. I rediscovered that I enjoyed leading, and was remided how nice it is to be lead by someone decisive, consistent, open to new ideas and with a vision. All of these seem to me to be fundamental parts of Marine leadership that are applicable to the business environment.
And I think the Marines gained a lot as well. Let’s face it, the military doesn’t always get the best rap in the business world. Doctrinaire, conservative, hierarchical, unoriginal, rigid — all of these are descriptions that are commonly attached to veterans. And who wants to hire someone you’d describe that way? Certainly not a small company, or a dynamic company, or a company that’s making waves — the kinds of companies at which I, and I think most Marshall students, would like to find ourselves. After a day at Camp Pendleton, I’m not sure I’d use any of those adjectives to describe a military man again. The upshot? I’ll be much more likely to hire a veteran in the future than I would have otherwise. A business suggestion to the Marines: if you’ve got training assets that are unused a few days a month, invite businesses by for an experience like we had. I bet you’ll improve your standing and your employees’ post-discharge employment opportunities, in no time. Plus, hey, who wouldn’t pay for a day of leadership training for mid-level executives? I’m talking revenue stream, baby!















And The Last Shall Be First

October 6, 2004 / posted in B-School / 7 Comments

Isn’t it’s amazing how something truly bad can make the mediocre seem wonderful? Unfortunately, I’ve managed to run into the truly awful in my truly expensive business school education. Yes, incompetence is thou, Steve Posner.
For many a week my least favorite class was Microeconomics, taught by “Rich Eastin”:http://www.marshall.usc.edu/Web/AcademicDepartments.cfm?doc_id=2298. Eastin’s clearly a smart guy, and he communicates pretty well, but he was stuck delivering way too much information in way too little time (one of my classmates, an undergrad Econ major, said that a 1 hour 20 minute class covered three weeks of an undergrad class), and he’s a little resistant to prioritizing said information. But Eastin’s lectures were filled with (curmudgeonly) effort, and, at the end of the quarter, it’s all starting to come together. Or at least I think it is; we’ll know after next week’s final.
Steve Posner, however, is either both incompetent and lazy or else trying to set a powerful anti-example for all of us. Posner teaches management communications, and, thus far, he’s not managing to communicate in any way at all. He talks a long time, he talks quietly, he lulls you to sleep, and he doesn’t have concrete points. He gives us speaking rules and then breaks them. He gives us nonspecific assignments and then rebukes us for not achieving specific goals.
I’m being too hard on Posner here, really. I think his strategies work well with freshmen — those young, skinny, attractive people who haven’t ever really worked hard before, are as yet unmoulded, and have tons of free time. But us b-school students are busy and set in our ways. We need concrete answers now, not philosophical change over a period of time. Posner doesn’t offer that. And he’s apparently lost buy-in from the class; nobody that I’ve run into did any substantial amount of work for our last presentation — not because they were too busy (although they were plenty busy, b-school students are good at making time for things they care about), but because they didn’t care.
So here’s the upshot. I like Micro better because it’s all starting to come together, sure, but the real reason is: Eastin’s way better than Posner. Most everyone is way better than Posner. He’s setting the bottom of the curve, and he’s setting it low.















Cordial Debatery

October 1, 2004 / posted in Politics / 1 Comment

I think I’m required, by statute, to comment upon the seminal political event of our times: the most cordial debate in Florida last night. And what a debate! It was filled with bon mots, with snappy comebacks, with deft verbal takedowns. Oh wait, it wasn’t. No “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”:http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9610/09/index.shtml No “Who am I? What am I doing here?”:http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/long.beach/perot/political.fray.shtml. No, these were the boring debates. Bush stuck to his script, mostly, and Kerry stuck to his. It was like paralell speeches; in four years, I suggest the candidates debate at remote locations, by telephone, without hearing each others’ positions at all. In fact, all of the responses could be pre-recorded, except that would remove all of the fun of hearing Bush go “um, uh…” and, most classically, “… … … …”
Now, I may have a different view of what went on, becuase I listened to the debate on that great innovation of the early 20th century, the radio. History fans out there may remember that, in the 1960 debate, people who listened on the radio thought Nixon kicked Kennedy’s butt while those who watched the debates on TV felt that Nixon was a sweaty, bearded monkey, and too stinky to vote for.
What I heard on the radio was a lot of dead air, all of it coming from the President. He’s always been good at being brief and to-the-point when speaking about complicated issues (yes, they do teach you that in b-school), but he took briefness to new levels; I can’t remember hearing any other debate in which the participants didn’t need every single second they had to expound on their various points and messages. Now, Bush’s responses weren’t all bad, and they were always on-message, but the silence did not help him look smart and prepared.
When the President was not being quiet, he was being stubborn. He continued to not take responsibility for, or even acknowledge, that he might have made any errors at any time. I’ve always been surprised that he’s taken that approach, because Republicans have been all about personal responsibilty in the last two decades and, frankly, I believe that the Commander in Chief has the leeway to say “I made the best decision I could at the time for the safety of the American people and, while later events have shown us that we might have taken a different approach, I certainly don’t regret having prioritized this country’s security and moved quickly and decisively to confront a threat.” But Bush doesn’t, which I don’t think helps him appeal to swing voters. Bush was certainly most fixed in his dismissal of negotiations with North Korea, an issue on which I believe Sen. Kerry is entirely correct.
So I was pretty shocked when the NPR analysts started telling me that George won. I was prepared to believe it was a tie, but, from my perspective, Kerry came off brief, cogent, smart, and consistent. It wasn’t until I saw the Daily Show later that night and watched Rudy Giuliani talk about how Bush had kicked Kerry’s butt that I realized the GOP was in full-on spin mode. The President lost! The question: will Kerry’s bump in the polls survive? Or is the Republican spin machine too pervasive and skilled to let the dialog slip away from Bush’s hands?.
The President should be concerned. With a future debate set for domestic and economic issues, and another designed with a Town Hall format, Bush has missed his chance to win where he was favored. Can he survive the debates? Maybe not. Will he get elected anyway? Jeb Bush and the folks at Diebold will sure do everything they can to see that he does!