Pat Buchanan Has Lost His Mind. And The Latest Gallup Polls

From More policy, less empathy – Initial reactions from the ‘Hardball’ panel

Pat Buchanan Sez:
I think the president was outstanding at times and he was spectacular at times. He did so much better than he did in Miami. It was a different man in the arena.

I think quite candidly— maybe I am the only one here— I thought he wiped up the floor with John Kerry. Kerry was hit with that opening question, which was rough: “How do you explain whether you are wishy-washy? ” It was like a boxing match where the president dropped him in the first round.

I never saw Kerry regain his footing. Looking at the president’s body language, the president was making jokes! The president was winking. The president felt confident. And you could see the idea he felt he was winning.

Looking at that debate, it is impossible for me to say anything other than that the president of the United States defeated John Kerry handily. He was boring and repetitive, using the same lines as last week. And my guess is, you will see after this debate a firming up of the president’s numbers.

Sorry Pat.

According to the latest polls, Kerry has come away as the “winner” of the second debate, albeit by a much smaller margin than I initially anticipated. With a pool of 515 registered voters who watched the debate, Gallup has Kerry winning, 47% to 45%. The Gallup article goes on to say that they polled a Kerry win of 53% to 37% following the first presidential debate.

According to Gallup, Democrats were behind Kerry 87% to 8%, while Republicans were behind Bush 83% to 10%. The more important factor, however, was that independents picked Kerry 53% to 37% – a 16 point margin.

Gallup admits that their pool had more Republicans (38%) to Democrats (32%) or independents (30%). Additionally, when asked the question of who they supported, 50% of the respondents said Bush, compared to 46% for Kerry.

A few other interesting tidbits:

Overall, 38% of viewers said they felt more favorably toward Kerry as a result of the debate, while 20% felt less favorably — a net positive of 18 points. By comparison, Bush received a net positive of 11 points — 31% of viewers said they felt more favorably and 20% less favorably toward Bush because of the debate.

In the first debate, Kerry received a net positive score of 33 points on the more favorable vs. less favorable ratings, compared with just 4 points for Bush, a further indication of how much better Bush did in this debate than the first one.

On who can better handle the issues of terrorism and Iraq, viewers moved more toward Bush than Kerry after the debate. On the economy, viewers edged toward Kerry.

* Viewers said they thought Bush would handle the economy better than Kerry, by 50% to 44% before the debate. Afterward, viewers split evenly, with 49% each choosing Kerry and Bush.

* Kerry was favored on Iraq before the debate, by 50% to 46%. After the debate, viewers switched to Bush by 53% to 46%.

* Viewers also gave increased support to Bush on terrorism, initially favoring the president by 52% to 45%, but favoring him by an even larger margin after the debate, 56% to 39%.

Full Gallup results here

That’s all for now folks.