In a new TIME article Joe Klein says, "I've never seen George Bush lose a debate." Curiously, I remember Bush losing the first Gore-Bush debate. As research is at our fingertips these days I easily found this CNN article from Oct 3, 2000, which says, "a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken immediately after Tuesday night's presidential debate indicated 48 percent of registered voters thought Gore did the best job in the debate, compared to 41 percent for Bush."
Bush won? Only the way he always wins, by losing but being handed the win by others. The Republicans managed to spin Bush's performance (remember the CW coming up to the debate was that he was an idiot and would look foolish); when Bush seemed adequately intelligent in the debate, that was blown up into a big success and the talking heads of the media happily parroted the notion of a Bush "win".
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