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By Richard Keil and William Roberts
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate John
Kerry accused President George W. Bush of committing a ``colossal
error of judgment'' by invading Iraq, putting Bush on the
defensive from the start of their first debate.
Bush countered by saying Kerry ``was sending mixed signals
to our troops'' by criticizing the war after voting to authorize
use of force in Iraq. ``You can't lead the war on terror if you
keep changing positions,'' Bush said during the debate last night
at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.
More voters said Kerry won the debate in polls conducted
immediately afterward by CNN/USA Today and broadcast networks ABC
and CBS. Bush entered the forum with a lead of as much as 8
percentage points in four national surveys released this week.
``Bush seemed exasperated at times, and Kerry was more
articulate and coherent,'' said University of Texas government
professor Bruce Buchanan, who has written four books on the
presidency. ``Both men made the points they wanted to make --Bush
accusing Kerry of flip-flopping, Kerry saying Bush has been
consistently wrong -- but Kerry came off as more polished.''
Iraq dominated the first hour of the 90-minute debate.
``This president has made, I regret to say, a colossal error
of judgment'' by invading Iraq, Kerry, 60, a four-term
Massachusetts senator, said after the second question from
moderator Jim Lehrer. ``And judgment is what we look for in the
president of the United States of America.''
`Real War'
The invasion diverted attention ``from the real war on
terror,'' Kerry said.
Bush countered by repeating six times over the course of the
debate that the Democratic candidate was ``sending mixed
signals'' to U.S. troops and their allies.
``He voted to authorize the use of force and now says it's
the wrong war at the wrong time,'' Bush, 58, said. ``I don't
think you can lead if you say wrong war, wrong time, wrong place.
What message does that send to our troops? What message does that
send to our allies?''
There have been 1,052 U.S. military deaths in Iraq since the
start of the war March 19, 2003, including 911 casualties since
Bush declared major combat over on May 1, 2003, according to the
Pentagon. A U.S.-led offensive overnight killed 96 insurgents in
Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the Associated Press
reported, citing a U.S. military spokesman.
Broadest Audience
The debate, 33 days before the election, gave Bush and Kerry
their broadest audience of the campaign, with a Los Angeles Times
poll showing 88 percent of likely voters planned to watch or
listen to the two candidates. About a fifth of the voters in the
Times poll said the debate might affect their vote.
Alexander Haig, secretary of state under Republican
President Ronald Reagan, called the debate ``a draw.''
``Bush won some arguments and Kerry won some of the
arguments,'' Haig said. Bush must ``continue to convince America,
as he has me, that we are doing the right thing in Iraq.''
The debate opened with a question to Kerry on whether he
could do a better job than Bush in preventing another terrorist
attack.
Kerry's answer and Bush's rebuttal shifted to Iraq. Kerry
said he ``can do a better job in Iraq,'' and Bush said the U.S.
``saw a threat'' there that needed to be addressed.
When Lehrer returned to homeland security, Kerry said Bush
is spending on Iraq and cutting taxes at the expense of boosting
defenses against terrorists at home.
``This president thought it was more important to give the
wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in
homeland security,'' Kerry said. ``Those aren't my values. I
believe in protecting America first.''
Bush said his administration ``tripled'' funding for
homeland security to $30 billion a year. ``But the best way to
protect this homeland is to stay on the offense,'' he said.
Campaign Continues
Bush and Kerry left the debates to continue campaigning in
the states that their campaigns say will be key to the Nov. 2
election. The president flies to Pennsylvania and Ohio, two
states that together have 41 of the 270 electoral votes needed to
win the presidency. Kerry is spending the next two days in
Florida, which has 27 electoral votes.
They are scheduled to debate twice more, on Oct. 8 and 13.
A poll by the Washington-based Gallup Organization for
CNN/USA Today among 615 registered voters who watched the debate
showed that 53 percent said Kerry did the better job in the
debate and 37 percent said Bush.
Gallup said that in four of the last five presidential
elections, the candidate rated the winner of the first debate
lost the November election. In 2000, 48 percent said Democrat Al
Gore bested Bush in their first debate, compared with 41 percent
who said Bush did a better job.
ABC Poll
The Gallup poll has an error margin of plus or minus 5
percentage points and reflects only the opinions of those who
watched the debate.
The ABC poll of 531 registered voters had similar results.
It found 45 percent said Kerry ``won'' the debate and 36 percent
said Bush won. Bush had support from 50 percent of those viewers
before the debate and 51 percent after. Kerry was supported by 46
percent before the event and 47 percent afterward.
CBS's survey, conducted via the Internet, found that 43
percent of 200 uncommitted voters who watched said Kerry won, 28
percent said Bush was the winner and 29 percent said they tied.
CBS said the survey was among voters who indicated they are
undecided or who said they have a preference and might change
their mind. The margin of error is plus or minus 7 percentage
points, CBS said.
`Knockout Punch'
``It was a Kerry victory, but he never delivered that
knockout punch,'' Russ Koesterich, chief U.S. equity strategist
at State Street Global Markets, which oversees about $1 trillion
in assets. ``The next two debates are going to be critical for
Kerry.''
In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times called Kerry the
winner by ``a comfortable margin'' and the New York Times said
Kerry ``delivered the goods.'' The Washington Post didn't say
whether one or the other won the contest.
The Democratic and Republican parties urged supporters to
promote their candidates after the debate.
Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe sent an e-mail to
backers that included Web links to online polls on the Web sites
of broadcast and cable networks, telephone numbers for national
call-in shows and a way to write a letter to the editor of local
newspapers ``with just a few clicks.''
`Debate Parties'
Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said the Republicans
regularly encourage their supporters to make similar efforts. The
party helped organize ``debate parties'' and as part of that
``we're encouraging them to take part in grassroots activities,''
he said in Coral Gables.
Bush was forced by moderator Lehrer to respond early in the
debate to Kerry's charge that he had erred by not working through
the United Nations and allowing the inspections process to
continue.
``I was hoping diplomacy would work,'' Bush said. ``I
understand the serious consequences of committing our troops into
harm's way.''
``It's the hardest decision a president makes,'' Bush said.
``So I went to the United Nations. I didn't need anybody to tell
me to go to the United Nations. I decided to go there myself.''
Kerry accused Bush nine times of making ``wrong'' foreign
policy decisions, a word Bush attempted to turn back on Kerry.
Troops are ``not going to follow somebody who says this is
the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time,'' Bush said.
``They're not going to follow somebody whose core convictions
keep changing because of politics in America.''
War on Terrorism
He said resolve is needed to succeed against terrorists.
``I understand everybody in this country doesn't agree with
the decisions I've made,'' Bush said. ``But people know where I
stand.''
Kerry twice said his position on Iraq has been
``consistent'' since he voted in favor of authorizing the use of
force on Oct. 9, 2002, and in his subsequent criticism of Bush's
handling of the war.
``It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and
be wrong,'' Kerry said.
Kerry also sought to separate the war in Iraq from the
campaign against terrorism. Polls by Gallup, the Washington
Post/ABC News and others show voters give Bush their strongest
support on the issue.
``The president just talked about Iraq as a center of the
war on terror,'' Kerry said. ``Iraq was not even close to the
center of the war on terror before the president invaded it.''
North Korea
On other foreign policy issues, one of the biggest
differences was on North Korea.
The Bush administration has called on North Korea to halt
its efforts to produce nuclear weapons and accept a program for
international verification.
The administration has refused North Korea's requests for
direct negotiations on the matter, and instead organized a six-
nation series of talks. There were three sets of negotiations
over the past year, with no agreement on when the next round will
be held. Kerry said he supports two-way talks in addition to
larger meetings.
``For two years, this administration didn't talk at all to
North Korea,'' Kerry said. ``Today there are four to seven
nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea.''
Kerry also said he would consider sending U.S. troops to
stop the massacres in the Darfur region of Sudan.
``As president, if it took American forces to some degree to
coalesce the African Union, I'd be prepared to do it because we
could never allow another Rwanda,'' Kerry said. He referred to
the 800,000 Rwandans killed in three and a half months of civil
war in the sub-Saharan country in 1994.
The Bush administration this month said the violence in
Darfur constituted ``genocide,'' and won passage of a UN Security
Council resolution that calls for an expanded commitment of
African Union troops to Darfur and threatens to consider imposing
oil trading sanctions on the Sudanese government.
--With reporting by Holly Rosenkrantz in Coral Gables, Florida,
and Roger Runningen, Kristin Jensen, Heidi Przybyla, Jay Newton-
Small and Michael Forsythe, Kim Chipman Dan Harrison and Cathy
Dodge in Washington. Editors: Sobczyk, Berley.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Roger Runningen in Washington at (1) (202) 624-1884 or
rrunningen@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Glenn Hall at (1)(202) 624-1966 or ghall@bloomberg.net.
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate John
Kerry accused President George W. Bush of committing a ``colossal
error of judgment'' by invading Iraq, putting Bush on the
defensive from the start of their first debate.
Bush countered by saying Kerry ``was sending mixed signals
to our troops'' by criticizing the war after voting to authorize
use of force in Iraq. ``You can't lead the war on terror if you
keep changing positions,'' Bush said during the debate last night
at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.
More voters said Kerry won the debate in polls conducted
immediately afterward by CNN/USA Today and broadcast networks ABC
and CBS. Bush entered the forum with a lead of as much as 8
percentage points in four national surveys released this week.
``Bush seemed exasperated at times, and Kerry was more
articulate and coherent,'' said University of Texas government
professor Bruce Buchanan, who has written four books on the
presidency. ``Both men made the points they wanted to make --Bush
accusing Kerry of flip-flopping, Kerry saying Bush has been
consistently wrong -- but Kerry came off as more polished.''
Iraq dominated the first hour of the 90-minute debate.
``This president has made, I regret to say, a colossal error
of judgment'' by invading Iraq, Kerry, 60, a four-term
Massachusetts senator, said after the second question from
moderator Jim Lehrer. ``And judgment is what we look for in the
president of the United States of America.''
`Real War'
The invasion diverted attention ``from the real war on
terror,'' Kerry said.
Bush countered by repeating six times over the course of the
debate that the Democratic candidate was ``sending mixed
signals'' to U.S. troops and their allies.
``He voted to authorize the use of force and now says it's
the wrong war at the wrong time,'' Bush, 58, said. ``I don't
think you can lead if you say wrong war, wrong time, wrong place.
What message does that send to our troops? What message does that
send to our allies?''
There have been 1,052 U.S. military deaths in Iraq since the
start of the war March 19, 2003, including 911 casualties since
Bush declared major combat over on May 1, 2003, according to the
Pentagon. A U.S.-led offensive overnight killed 96 insurgents in
Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the Associated Press
reported, citing a U.S. military spokesman.
Broadest Audience
The debate, 33 days before the election, gave Bush and Kerry
their broadest audience of the campaign, with a Los Angeles Times
poll showing 88 percent of likely voters planned to watch or
listen to the two candidates. About a fifth of the voters in the
Times poll said the debate might affect their vote.
Alexander Haig, secretary of state under Republican
President Ronald Reagan, called the debate ``a draw.''
``Bush won some arguments and Kerry won some of the
arguments,'' Haig said. Bush must ``continue to convince America,
as he has me, that we are doing the right thing in Iraq.''
The debate opened with a question to Kerry on whether he
could do a better job than Bush in preventing another terrorist
attack.
Kerry's answer and Bush's rebuttal shifted to Iraq. Kerry
said he ``can do a better job in Iraq,'' and Bush said the U.S.
``saw a threat'' there that needed to be addressed.
When Lehrer returned to homeland security, Kerry said Bush
is spending on Iraq and cutting taxes at the expense of boosting
defenses against terrorists at home.
``This president thought it was more important to give the
wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in
homeland security,'' Kerry said. ``Those aren't my values. I
believe in protecting America first.''
Bush said his administration ``tripled'' funding for
homeland security to $30 billion a year. ``But the best way to
protect this homeland is to stay on the offense,'' he said.
Campaign Continues
Bush and Kerry left the debates to continue campaigning in
the states that their campaigns say will be key to the Nov. 2
election. The president flies to Pennsylvania and Ohio, two
states that together have 41 of the 270 electoral votes needed to
win the presidency. Kerry is spending the next two days in
Florida, which has 27 electoral votes.
They are scheduled to debate twice more, on Oct. 8 and 13.
A poll by the Washington-based Gallup Organization for
CNN/USA Today among 615 registered voters who watched the debate
showed that 53 percent said Kerry did the better job in the
debate and 37 percent said Bush.
Gallup said that in four of the last five presidential
elections, the candidate rated the winner of the first debate
lost the November election. In 2000, 48 percent said Democrat Al
Gore bested Bush in their first debate, compared with 41 percent
who said Bush did a better job.
ABC Poll
The Gallup poll has an error margin of plus or minus 5
percentage points and reflects only the opinions of those who
watched the debate.
The ABC poll of 531 registered voters had similar results.
It found 45 percent said Kerry ``won'' the debate and 36 percent
said Bush won. Bush had support from 50 percent of those viewers
before the debate and 51 percent after. Kerry was supported by 46
percent before the event and 47 percent afterward.
CBS's survey, conducted via the Internet, found that 43
percent of 200 uncommitted voters who watched said Kerry won, 28
percent said Bush was the winner and 29 percent said they tied.
CBS said the survey was among voters who indicated they are
undecided or who said they have a preference and might change
their mind. The margin of error is plus or minus 7 percentage
points, CBS said.
`Knockout Punch'
``It was a Kerry victory, but he never delivered that
knockout punch,'' Russ Koesterich, chief U.S. equity strategist
at State Street Global Markets, which oversees about $1 trillion
in assets. ``The next two debates are going to be critical for
Kerry.''
In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times called Kerry the
winner by ``a comfortable margin'' and the New York Times said
Kerry ``delivered the goods.'' The Washington Post didn't say
whether one or the other won the contest.
The Democratic and Republican parties urged supporters to
promote their candidates after the debate.
Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe sent an e-mail to
backers that included Web links to online polls on the Web sites
of broadcast and cable networks, telephone numbers for national
call-in shows and a way to write a letter to the editor of local
newspapers ``with just a few clicks.''
`Debate Parties'
Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said the Republicans
regularly encourage their supporters to make similar efforts. The
party helped organize ``debate parties'' and as part of that
``we're encouraging them to take part in grassroots activities,''
he said in Coral Gables.
Bush was forced by moderator Lehrer to respond early in the
debate to Kerry's charge that he had erred by not working through
the United Nations and allowing the inspections process to
continue.
``I was hoping diplomacy would work,'' Bush said. ``I
understand the serious consequences of committing our troops into
harm's way.''
``It's the hardest decision a president makes,'' Bush said.
``So I went to the United Nations. I didn't need anybody to tell
me to go to the United Nations. I decided to go there myself.''
Kerry accused Bush nine times of making ``wrong'' foreign
policy decisions, a word Bush attempted to turn back on Kerry.
Troops are ``not going to follow somebody who says this is
the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time,'' Bush said.
``They're not going to follow somebody whose core convictions
keep changing because of politics in America.''
War on Terrorism
He said resolve is needed to succeed against terrorists.
``I understand everybody in this country doesn't agree with
the decisions I've made,'' Bush said. ``But people know where I
stand.''
Kerry twice said his position on Iraq has been
``consistent'' since he voted in favor of authorizing the use of
force on Oct. 9, 2002, and in his subsequent criticism of Bush's
handling of the war.
``It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and
be wrong,'' Kerry said.
Kerry also sought to separate the war in Iraq from the
campaign against terrorism. Polls by Gallup, the Washington
Post/ABC News and others show voters give Bush their strongest
support on the issue.
``The president just talked about Iraq as a center of the
war on terror,'' Kerry said. ``Iraq was not even close to the
center of the war on terror before the president invaded it.''
North Korea
On other foreign policy issues, one of the biggest
differences was on North Korea.
The Bush administration has called on North Korea to halt
its efforts to produce nuclear weapons and accept a program for
international verification.
The administration has refused North Korea's requests for
direct negotiations on the matter, and instead organized a six-
nation series of talks. There were three sets of negotiations
over the past year, with no agreement on when the next round will
be held. Kerry said he supports two-way talks in addition to
larger meetings.
``For two years, this administration didn't talk at all to
North Korea,'' Kerry said. ``Today there are four to seven
nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea.''
Kerry also said he would consider sending U.S. troops to
stop the massacres in the Darfur region of Sudan.
``As president, if it took American forces to some degree to
coalesce the African Union, I'd be prepared to do it because we
could never allow another Rwanda,'' Kerry said. He referred to
the 800,000 Rwandans killed in three and a half months of civil
war in the sub-Saharan country in 1994.
The Bush administration this month said the violence in
Darfur constituted ``genocide,'' and won passage of a UN Security
Council resolution that calls for an expanded commitment of
African Union troops to Darfur and threatens to consider imposing
oil trading sanctions on the Sudanese government.
--With reporting by Holly Rosenkrantz in Coral Gables, Florida,
and Roger Runningen, Kristin Jensen, Heidi Przybyla, Jay Newton-
Small and Michael Forsythe, Kim Chipman Dan Harrison and Cathy
Dodge in Washington. Editors: Sobczyk, Berley.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Roger Runningen in Washington at (1) (202) 624-1884 or
rrunningen@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Glenn Hall at (1)(202) 624-1966 or ghall@bloomberg.net.
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