We watched the debate in Chauncy's (Our uber-awesome game-room with FIVE tvs, yes my school has too much money) tonight. The focus on the debate was homeland security and the war on terrorism, which is a wholeheartedly boring and overdiscussed topic in the first place, but both candidates found a way to make it interesting I suppose.
Some lvl. 9'ers were playing Trivial Pursuit down there (and sitting right in front of the main TV, no less) and talking up a storm. About halfway through the debate, I could see everyone giving them this evil eye, like “shut the fuck up or leave.” One of them rolled the dice or something and was reading the next question out loud when I got fed up, and I walked up to them and quietly told them to either leave or pay more attention to the debate.
Both made many valid arguments. Kerry continued to reiterate that he would solve the nations problems in the four years in office, and he actually promised Americans this. Bush stayed true to his beliefs that you can promise anything you want, but actually fulfilling those promises is difficult to do. Its interesting to note that Kerry believes that he can accomplish his goals in a mere four years, while Bush is more realistic and realizes that things take time. He made an interesting argument with respect to Russia when he said you can't always do what's popular, you have to do what's right. The distinction he makes between himself and Kerry is that he will alter his methods but never vary his plans to reach his goal, while he beleives Kerry always attempts to do what is popular.
All in all, I thought it was an excellent debate. The talk about North Korea and Iran got a little out of hand, and Iraq was mentioned more than it needed to be, but the homeland security questions were answered well, in addition to the questions on how they percieved the character of their opponent. Waiting until next Thursday for the second debate, and the VP debate on Tuesday.
