Carla had asked me to write this last night, but we didn't have our results compiled. For those who don't know, I am part of one of the largest studies in the country on Presidential Debates. I will give you some of the highlights from the Press Release we wrote Friday, and then some of my own research on their debate strategies and how they played out in the debates.

We had focus groups in 19 states, with over 3500 participants on the early returns. Here is some of what we learned:

1) Predebate, our sample had about 14% undecided voters. Post debate, it was down to about 9.5%. Of that movement, some of it was people going from decided to undecided. My analysis: Kerry will get a bump in days to come, and Bush will take a hit, but not a large number on that.

2) Three most significant topics of discussion in the debate that participants found to be the most important: Iraq (how to get our troops out), N. Korea, and Nuclear Proliferation, in that order. My analysis: They were Kerry positions that came out as significant. That would indicate he was the best at reaching voters in general, and shifted the debate ground to his issues, further helping him.

3) What participants want to hear: Domestic issues in general, including Health Care, Gay marriage, Abortion, Oil Prices, economy, and "outsourcing" with Homeland Security right behind it. My analysis: The issues, because Health Care and "outsourcing" were in those (and issues 3-6 were tied in number of references, but well behind 1 and 2), they seem to indicate a left leaning concern, thus Kerry issues where he can gain more ground.

Notes: The study did NOT ask who they were voting for or who they decided to vote for. That was not the mission of our study. Ours is voter education and the impact of debates, as well as how to improve them. Where I put "my analysis", it is exclusively my own thoughts and have zero link to the study. Additionally, these are PRELIMINARY FINDINGS based on the first debate. Some of the data has not been sent in completely at this point. But the trends seemed to be pretty clear across all regions of the country.

Why did Kerry beat GW?

Through my other research project, I have viewed each of them in previous debates and read research. I have figured out some of their core strategies, and it has helped me to explain what happened.

GW's core strategy is centered on the principle that people prefer certainty to uncertainty. This sounds rather vague and general, but it is the core of the 2 election strategies that have helped him win and this one. Against Richards, he ran on her as the "flip flopper" and himself as the candidate that you knew where he stood. Against Gore, Gore was the liar you couldn't trust what he said, thus, you didn't know what he would do; and GW was the honest, predictable one. Against Kerry, the Richards approach applies and some of the soundbytes and speech statements are so close that if you altered the name, the rest of the sentence would match exactly.

Kerry's core strategy is that of the counterpuncher. His former opponents have indicated they thought they landed "haymakers" only to find them thrown back at them even harder with the counterpunch. These counterpunches are like "halftime adjustments" in sports, and are usually based on one of two approaches: 1) lessons of Vietnam; or 2) using the opponent's strategy against them.

The debate had GW using the "mixed signals" (because I believe Flip Flopper was a banned term, along with "drunk", "Draft Dodger" and any other seemingly direct term (ok, not that bad, but still...) statements through the first half of the debate, but they tended to disappear in the second half. Kerry started to use the same terminology of "mixed signals" to describe certain key issues for GW in regards to nuclear proliferation and "bunker buster nukes", etc. This seemed to throw GW to an extent. Additionally, Kerry used the "Vietnam experience" to answer the dying soldiers questions. GW lost focus on his message.

One other variable I noticed was Lehrer himself. Lehrer was using "softball" questions in 2000 and is relatively known for the "softball" questions. In this debate, Lehrer did his homework and planning. The questions were precise, to the point, and made it harder to link them back to your stump speech because they were asking for candidates to go beyond the stump speeches. This seemed to explain part of why GW's stumbling largely happened at the beginning of questions, though not all of it. Kerry seemed to start a little slow, but adapted quickly when he realized how the questions were going to work better than GW did.

Overall: The domestic debate should be the key debate because people want to see how things play out where they perceive the issues to impact them more directly. However, the debate itself was perceived as far more informative than other results in previous debate years for our research group, which bodes well for both candidates and the debate process. Yes, this first debate was vital for Kerry. He had to do what he did... allow people to view him enacting the Presidency to stay in the race. GW has a second chance to hold on if he does well on domestic issues. However, if he doesn't, the debates may turn this race the way the Democrats hoped it would for Gore in 2000.

Final Note: The VP debates may have a lot of impact, more than traditionally viewed. GW got noticably upset in the middle portion of the debate, with calm on both sides of it, while Kerry seemed level, upbeat, confident. IF something similar happens in the VP debates and/or in the other Presidential debates, the image of the Bush Administration as "steady" and "predictable" or "certain" may disappear, and switch to the Kerry Campaign, due to the letting of emotions get to the Administration. I don't expect to see it happen, but then again, I didn't expect Cheney to cuss out someone on the Senate Floor either.