The third Presidential Debate was not that interesting. This time the format was questions from the audience, although once again it was well-structured and the audience questions were well-screened before hand. Once again the two candidates talked about Health Care, Education, Taxes, Foreign Policy, and got to Farming by the time I stopped paying attention.

There were a lot more catch phrases this time. Bush kept hammering on his "less government", "I'm not a Washington bureaucrat", "I bring the two sides together" and so forth. Gore was more "I'm going to fight for you", "I have lots of experience serving my country", "I'm smarter". Now, I'm sure that new issues were brought up in the second half, but since I wasn't paying attention by then I'll have to talk about other things.

General impressions. Gore is smarter than Bush. Bush seemed to avoid questions by going back to prepared speeches and sound bytes. Anytime Gore asked Bush a direct question (which the candidates were not supposed to do in this debate), Bush ignored it, although occassionally he responded with the same things he keeps saying. Not that Gore didn't do the same thing when it suited him. But Gore did answer more questions with at least different prepared speeches, and occassionally he did say what he really thought rather than what his people told him to say.

Other than on a few specific issues, I like Bush's philosophies better. Less government with more emphasis on moral values and helping people rather than trying to run their lives. Unfortunately I really disagree strongly with some of his concrete examples. Tax the rich less, exploit our resources, favor big companies. Gore, although he means well, does have some overcomplicated plans.

Still, when it comes right down to it I don't like Bush personally. Not that he's evil, but he doesn't seem all that sincere to me. Gore just seems to believe in what he's talking about. And since the score was tied last time and this debate didn't change anything, right now I'm leaning towards voting for the Democratic ticket.

What I didn't like about Bush was that he didn't answer specific questions. It was always about ideals, what it would be nice to do in a perfect, but no concrete examples. Asked about the Middle East he goes on about how we have to stick with our allies and we have a responsibility to the rest of the world and so forth. At least Gore said we have to get Israeli and Palestinians talking again and we should put pressure on their leaders.

What I didn't like about Gore is the way he answered every question. Gore seemed to abuse the debate rules more than Bush. He kept asking Bush questions and introducing new topics. I didn't like the way both sides criticized the other's plans rather than saying what they would do, and Gore was worse at this. Ask him a question and he'll answer how he supports it and then why Bush is wrong, often putting words into Bush's mouth. I guess Bush was more defensive as he had to keep saying how Gore was wrong, but even then Bush rarely went into specifics.

I have one clear image from this debate. A man stands up and asks his question: "Governor Bush, in the last debate you seemed proud of your state's record of executions. Are you really proud of that Texas leads the nation in executing criminals?" That stumped Bush, he actually took a few seconds to think it out. But rather than explain his position he went to some prepared speech about doing the necessary thing and if there had been another way he would have supported it. Here was a chance to say something, but he didn't. And that's pretty much Bush and I don't like that about him.