By Alan Elsner, ContributorMANCHESTER, N.H., Reuters:
A GROUP OF citizens in the swing state of New Hampshire, including Democrats, Repub-licans and one undecided voter, gave a slight edge to Democrat John Kerry in Thursday's first presidential debate.
Before the debate began, three of the seven voters who gathered at Saint Anselm College, a small Catholic university near Manchester, said they were leaning toward Kerry, but without any great enthusiasm. The three who said they supported President George W. Bush were all passionately behind him.
ENCOURAGED
After the debate, all three Kerry supporters said they were much more encouraged and heartened by the Massachusetts senator's performance. The Bush supporters remained solidly committed to the president.
Adam Schibley, a politics student at the college and the group's sole undecided voter, said he was now leaning strongly toward Kerry.
"Kerry answered a few questions I had that were open-ended before the debate started," he said. "Bush struggled more to verbalise his beliefs while Kerry found it easy to put into words exactly what he felt."
Polls show the presidential race in New Hampshire is extremely close. Bush was scheduled to visit Manchester on Friday while Kerry was scheduled to arrive in the state early next week.
Dentist Lawrence Puccini, a Bush supporter, said that viewed purely as a debating contest, Kerry was the winner.
"Bush had a sour look to him. Kerry showed himself a real polished debater. He kept attacking but he didn't really convince me about what he would do differently. But in terms of the debate, he cleaned Bush's clock," he said.
The New Hampshire voters agreed that both candidates had strong moments in the debate.
"Bush seemed most presidential when he rejected Kerry's approach to bilateral talks with North Korea," said Marc Cronin, the dean of first-year students at Saint Anselm College. "But I was pleased by Kerry's performance. He made a reasonable case for his position and he was not as scripted as Bush, although both were a bit scripted at times."
SOLID POINT
Others in the group said Kerry scored a solid point when he highlighted the decline in U.S. international credibility by recalling how during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 French President Charles De Gaulle had accepted the word of the President of the United States without the need to see proof.
Henry Wenta, a distributor for a major beer company, was totally committed to Bush before the debate began and remained so after it was over. But he said there was no clear winner to the encounter.
"John Kerry is cold, he was yelling all the time. Bush is friendly and speaking to us, not to Jim (moderator Jim Lehrer). Bush I believe him, I believe everything he says. He still has my vote," he said.
EMOTIONAL CONNECTION
Before the debate began, Meg Cronin, an English professor at the college, said she wished the Democrats had nominated someone else for president.
She was pleased that neither candidate had indulged in personal attacks and said Bush had made it clear that he had a lot of real world experience as president.
Overall, however, she finished the evening a stronger Kerry supporter than before.
