According to the Wash Post, there's trouble in Republican-land. It seems Bush's advisers were "stunned" at how negative the reviews were of Bush's performance at the debate (were they high?). Even better, you now have Republican strategists talking to the media about how concerned they are. That's something the Dems usually do. Well, now the Repugs are doing the same thing. I smell trouble :-)
Bush advisers were described as stunned by how negative the reviews were of the president's performance, which many of them regarded as not his best but not so bad....
Other Republicans were privately less optimistic about the race, fearing that Kerry's debate performance could erase much of the impact of months of Bush-Cheney ads portraying the Democratic nominee as a flip-flopper. They said they were surprised by Bush's lackluster performance, even granting that the president is not the most skilled of debaters.
Asked whether he worried that Bush was on the defensive over his record in Iraq, one GOP strategist said, "I'm far less worried about that than that we had [Kerry] firmly pinned down as a wishy-washy flip-flopper and that's now not nearly as pinned down as I wish it were." The strategist, who declined to be identified to speak freely about the president's campaign, indicated that the debates offered Bush the opportunity to drive home that argument decisively and that in the Coral Gables debate he had failed to do so.
