I'm watching a tape of the first Presidential Debate. Actually it wasn't called a debate, it was called a joint appearance or something like that. We have Jim Lehrer of the PBS News Hour show moderating and fighting a losing battle trying to keep the two candidates on track and on time. Maybe I'm more of a Democrat than I care to admit, or maybe it's just that I don't like Bush, but Gore has done a good job after a bit more than an hour.

I wasn't totally paying attention all the time (I'm playing Deathground with the smartest computers with all the luck and making myself unlucky and I'm still winning, although it's taking me longer). Bush keeps using catch phrases like "fuzzy math", "Hollywood insider", "what have you done in the last seven years?" when talking about Gore. Neither really answers the other's questions and statements directly, but at least Gore says new things in half of his rebuttals while Bush keeps saying the same thing over and over.

Here are the points that have come across, as far as I can tell. Gore wants to invest in new energy, clean energy, reducing energy consumption. Bush wants to solve our energy problems by exploiting Alaska: "it's better to depend on our natural resources rather than give money to Saddam Hussein for his oil" (I'm paraphrasing). Personally I'd rather exploit some other country's resources than our own. Gore has a better strategy here.

The second point is taxes. Gore wants to target tax cuts to the middle class. Bush wants more tax cuts that apply across the board. Gore says that 30% of Bush's tax cuts apply to people making more than $1 million. Bush comes back by saying that Gore has no tax cuts for people making less than $25k a year. In general I support tax cuts for the bottom 50% and slightly increasing the taxes of the top 25% to make up. Once again Bush asks what Gore has been doing for the last seven years since he hasn't accomplished anything significant. Not to make any apologies for the man but he was Vice President, they don't get to do much.

On education they seemed to be about the same and for the other questions posed I didn't see any significant differences (certainly none that I remember 15 minutes afterwards). Governor Bush seemed to spend too much time attacking Gore the man and less trying to debate his policies. Vice President Gore in my mind comes across as a person who is intelligent and one who has some real plans. Whether or not I agree with Gore, at least he seems to have a clearer direction and strategy of what he wants to do than Bush.

Naturally, I'm probably only listening to what I want to hear. This is only the first debate with another one on Thursday (I think that's the Vice Presidential debate, the next Presidential debate is a next week sometime). I would have to say that Gore came out the winner in this debate with a score of 2 to 0. One thing about Gore is that he looks a bit silly when he talks. He leans too much and his face looks a bit funny, like he's not used to showing emotions.

Two CBS analysts afterwards both say that Bush gained more, that he showed an understanding of the issues. Must have missed that. Dick Cheney naturally said that Gore is a hypocrite in campaign finance reform and that Gore dodged the questions. Lieberman said that Gore showed a good command of the issues and was more informed than Bush. Lieberman also said that Bush ignored Gores questions and resorted to personal attacks.

For the first debate that I've paid some sort of attention to (rather than cursing the networks for preempting my television programs), it was a bit interesting. I haven't been paying attention to the issues until now. I'm not as concerned about litmus issues; I'm not going to vote for Bush just because he'll increase military spending for instance. What I want is a President who has a plan and will try to follow it, who'll do his best. I want a leader in the White House. We'll see who I decide to vote for in November.