Wow… this one wasn’t nearly as funny as the first Presidential debate. It was just party politics as usual. Cheney defended the President’s policies in Iraq, Edwards ripped those policies. Cheney touted their lame prescription drug benefit – Edwards said they would do more. Cheney had well-thought-out responses to questions – Edwards did one of three things to questions 1) state what was wrong with the current administration 2) say they would do more or 3) change the subject to something he wanted to talk about.

Cheney clearly won the debate, but lost a lot of credit with me as he continually turned the discussion to fearmongering. His constant comments about terrorists coming into our cities were designed only to frighten the voting public into voting for Bush. Edwards had some very strong comments about closing corporate loopholes, making lawyers accountable for frivilous lawsuits and giving Americans the same health care coverage as members of Congress, but his (& Kerry’s) record does NOT back it up. It is another example of Clinton politics… make promises based on what is really needed and desired by the public and then never deliver.

If Kerry/Edwards gave us any reason to believe that they would follow through on their domestic policy, it might be worth taking a gamble on them… unfortunately, they flip and flop constantly and this is another example. They will later be able to say “we were for ….” until the tide changes and they are able to claim, “we didn’t vote for …”

This debate makes me realize even more that both parties are representatives of what I call the Big Business Party and this is just a charade to make us thing we have a choice.