I just watched the second presidential debate between Vice President Al Gore and Governor George Bush. My first impression is that this was much more civil than their first debate. Apparently they saw the good reviews that the vice presidential debate garnered and have hopefully seen the light that people don't want a campaign where both candidates attack each other personally. With the previous impression in mind, there were still a couple of times when the candidates got a bit out of control. Gore at times used Texas' record as a reflection of Bush's ability and Bush did the same regarding the federal government's record. For the most part I don't care about previous records. One man, no matter how powerful, is not going to make that much of a direct difference. Our federal and state governments are too big and complicated and there are too many checks and balances for one person to do it all. Now, a head of state appoints people and has a large staff to help him guide and nurture his visions. It's nice to see indications, but concrete examples are for the most part only indications and take away from the actual ideas and positions of the candidates.

The second impression that I got was on the philosophical differences between the two. In most of the issues in this debate, they substantially agreed on what end results they want. Many people (especially people who support third parties) may see this as having two bland candidates that you can vote based on flipping a coin. I see this is as reassuring. Both candidates for the most part will do sane things, support the issues that I support, and have a good grasp of the issues to see that radicalism doesn't get you anywhere. Back to the philosophies. For many of the issues, Gore's response is to push new laws to further his goals: for racial profiling a law banning it, for same sex marriages a law granting them the same rights as regular marriages, for gun control laws for identifyin new gun owners. Bush's response to these same issues is to the enforce the existing laws, that these issues have to be dealt with at the people level, at the level where you educate people to not do these things in the first place. Be more responsible and so forth. In this case I tend to agree more with Bush. I believe in our government, doesn't mean I believe our government should pass more and more laws. Existing laws should work if they are implemented the way that Congress meant them to be implemented.

As far as the issues themselves, the two candidates fielded questions dealing with our international policies, racial profiling and education, same sex marriages, gun control, healthcare and a few other things at the end that I didn't write down. They also rehashed the environment issue and taxes, both saying the same things as last time so I'm still more in favor of Gore's positions than Bush's. There were some minor points: Bush said that Africa is not a high priority so human rights abuses there are not a sufficient reason to intervene in that continent, Bush believes in education testing to make sure that students are learning (and I read an article in the SF Chronicle about Texas' education testing, it was not flattering. Testing is a nice indicator but you have to take care not to place too much emphasis on testing, because then teaching becomes trying to pass an imperfect test rather than helping students learn), Bush doesn't believe in granting gay marriages the same rights as regular marriages, Gore wants to id new gun owners (not make current gun] owners register, and the ids should be done by the states). Nothing in my mind that echoed strongly enough for me to say I side with a candidate on this issue and don't side with a candidate on the other issue. Usually I side with a candidate but the other candidate doesn't have a bad plan or I side against a candidate but the other candidate doesn't have a good alternative. So in the end I'll give Bush a point because I like the way he wants to institute his plans, through enforcing what's already there versus Gore trying to pass more and more laws to bandaid problems.

As a last comment, Bush was actually much more personable this time around than last time. By not attacking Gore and using his little catch phrases he didn't look like a fool. Gore has a habit of saying "Uhm" a lot, but he does seem more intelligent than Bush. Of course that's not qualification for a leader. You know I didn't penalize Bush for looking like a jackass in the last debate, so I'll only score him 1/2 point this time. Coincidentally, this makes the current score a 2-all tie between the two tickets.