http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/13/politics/campaign/13campaign.html?position=&ei=5094&en=0f518e5bd0433616&hp=&ex=1097640000&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1097636457-TUnPLHLv5oXkKnpPNkt+DQPresident Bush and Senator John Kerry meet in their final presidential debate on Wednesday night after two encounters that polls suggest weakened Mr. Bush and fortified Mr. Kerry, leaving some Republicans concerned that the final 20 days of the contest would be more competitive than they had expected.
Republicans who had been confident of victory before the debates said they were uneasy as Mr. Bush returns to a format - 90 minutes of questions from one moderator - that has seemed to play to the strength of Mr. Kerry, a 20-year senator and former prosecutor. Mr. Kerry burnished his credentials in the first two debates, averting an early collapse that Republicans had sought, and Mr. Bush has lost some or all of the lead he had before their first debate in Florida on Sept. 30, a series of recent polls suggests.
Republicans are also concerned that the debate, at 9 p.m. Eastern time in Tempe, Ariz., is the only one devoted to domestic policy, and polls show Mr. Kerry has an edge on many of those issues.
"By any objective measure - if Republicans are going to be intellectually honest with ourselves - prior to the first debate, we were pretty comfortable, '' said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. "It was a chance for the president to lay him out and just lock it. In the past two weeks, that's been turned on its head."
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
