Kerry: 3-0

Despite the fact that I spent the better part of the hour and a half trying to decide if I was more revolted by the glob of spittle clinging to the corner of Furious George's mouth or the policies he tried to stumblingly articulate through said globbed-up piehole, I did manage to pay attention to the content of the debate.

First thoughts: This was by far the most even match-up, but Kerry definitely won, mainly through less evasion of questions. Bush's mantra that education is somehow the cure-all for all of society's ills was tiresome and repetitive. It made him sound desperate, and his domestic platform ring hollow, which is pretty much on the mark.

Education is imperative, but it is not even remotely a panacea for the multitude of problems facing this nation, not the least of which is un- and underemployment. Some poor guy in (here I will carefully insert a swing state, since the rest of us don't exist according to both candidates) Ohio who was two years away from retirement isn't going to agree that education is the solution to unemployment. He's knows community college won't solve his problems, because he's smart enough to know that the chances of his getting hired in an entry level position at his age are unlikely at best, and he waved bye-bye long ago to any (dubious) help that could be afforded by No Child Behind. Bush has no plan for the real people out there who are getting laid off, and it showed.

Additionally, Bush certainly didn't ingratiate himself with his economic plans to someone like me, who has no children and therefore gets no relief from a 'child tax credit' or a 'tuition tax credit,' and who has paid into Social Security for half my life, only to hear it will be effectively dismantled during his next term, should his deal with Satan ensure him one. What does he say to the not-young and not-old about how they'll never see a dime of what they've already put into Social Security? Am I to be expected to replace the money that has come out of my paycheck all these years with money that I put into the accounts he's proposing that are essentially glorified IRAs? I can't afford to contribute the maximum amounts to my IRA now, no less somehow manage to fund it in a way that would make up for the loss of the money I've contributed thus far to Social Security.

Ditto with his asinine health savings accounts. If I had $5,000 to put away every year just in case, I'd be doing it already, tax-free or not. I don't, so his little HSA proposal is falling on broke ears.

And the thing is, I'm not remotely destitute. There are people in the community in which I live - people who probably hear the words 'ownership society' and think it sounds great; people who might vote for Bush - who are much worse off than myself, and it frightens me to think that they may very well vote against their own best interests because of Bush's ability to shine up a turd.