A Draw and a Locked Door

So today was an interesting day for lots of reasons.

First, we had a rally near the capitol building to protest Bush's overtime pay cuts. After standing at the intersection and urging drivers to honk (which many did), we marched two blocks north to the Iowa Republican Party Headquarters. As we approached, I noticed someone inside peeking out of a window as we chanted.

Once we parked in front of headquarters, we started chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, George Bush has got to go."

We tried to go to the front door to deliver letters from union members protesting the pay cut - and found a locked door.

Neat.

So we chanted some more. They were nervous. We kept chanting. Then we tried to deliver the box to the other front door (don't ask, apparently there was need for two). And again, they wouldn't answer. So we chanted some more. After a while, we decided to disperse, but not without leaving this present for them on their front lawn:



Then it was back to the office for mailings and more work. It was then that I noticed that I had blisters on my index fingers from all the copying I did. Who knew pulling stacks of warm copies would do that? Then again, I made something like 11,000+ copies. Oy.

So instead of going to the pub with the party for the debate, we opted for Judy's house to enjoy margaritas, stuffing envelopes, and (this was the most brilliant idea I've ever had) the debate on one tv and another on top with the Yankees game on mute.

Brilliant.

The game wasn't so brilliant, but the debate was interesting. Lots of folks have called me or emailed to get my thoughts. So here they are:

Overall, I think it was a great debate - Cheney is really hard to pin down and I think Edwards did a good job of holding his own.

The only thing that I can really pull out of it is the fact that Cheney is a stronger debater (candidate even) than Bush himself. Which causes one to wonder again about the puppet master thing. I think Cheney was an incredibly strong debater, he was wrong on a couple of things, and Edwards is a charming, charismatic guy who was able to smile his way through some of it, but also was able to do the Clinton “feel your pain” thing.

If I was scoring, I’d call it a draw. Kerry/Edwards still has the advantage since he obliterated Bush in the first debate, but this thing is going to get very interesting come Friday. Both of them did a good job of sticking to message and trading jabs last night, I’d say it’s hard to distinguish a clear winner when the dust settled. I think Cheney scored on the foreign side, Edwards on the domestic, but that was to be expected. There were some surprise shots in there. But there were also a lot of fuzzy facts thrown in.

But here was the one thing I could pick out, despite being distracted at times by the game - and I think Jessi Klein put it brilliantly in her debate blog on CNN:

"I respect Cheney's response about not having further political aspirations beyond being vice president, and that is an advantage in terms of not having any further political agenda beyond the care of this country. But...he already is the president, no?"

I'm not going to do what I usually do, which is rant endlessly about the debates, I think this was a good debate that showed two strong candidates. And I think that the Friday debate will be a very interesting show, indeed. So tune in.

Also, I put a link on the left there for my friend, Ludovic. Check him out, he's got some good stuff to say.

As a random side note, has anyone else noticed the abnormally large Adam's apple that Ann Coulter seems to have? Good call, Megan. Yes, we are aware we are saying she might be a man, baby. And wouldn't that just be the kind of October surprise this celebrity-craved nation needs?