Just heard an excerpt from Kerry's Q&A session at the Unity conference.

[NightTrain]

Amy Goodman ran about 20 minutes of it on today's DEMOCRACY NOW! The minority journalists who attended the conference asked the senator tough questions. Kerry's answers were thought-out, detailed, and articulate, and drew lots of applause from the audience.

The more I learn about that man, the better I like him!

[Feanorcurufinwe]

1. Yep, the speech was good, but the Q&A was better...

[doctorbombeigh]

2. C-Span ran the whole thing a couple of times yesterday

The speech was good - a bit long, occasionally repetetive, but Kerry did a terrific job. I was riveted and I've seen him say much of it before. The questions afterwards were from the panelists, not the audience. They were decent questions, though absent the usual radical-rightwingnut element so often present on panels these days.

He got bogged down in "senate-ese" from time to time, though not as often as the Republicans are hoping for, I'm sure. He definitely needs to streamline his answer on education. It's a complex problem and deserves a thoughtful response, that's not the issue. The problem was that Kerry's spent so many years really working on the details and the legislative side - the Joe&Jane-with-kids simplified answer wasn't there. The details of the underlying causes came into his answer because he's intelligent, but it detracted from its focus - it diffused Kerry's message. The message itself is excellent, but I was thinking ahead to the debates and he's going to have to tighten that one up.

Actually, speaking of the debates, other than the occasional lapse into intelligence, he was looking really set for the debates. Took the questions easily, had serious responses ready to go and... no small advantage against his opponent... he does have command of the English language. Anyway - Kerry's been getting stronger and stronger as a candidate for months, imo. He'll win the debates - no matter what Rove does to screw him in setting the formats.

[sandnsea]

3. I thought it was great

The education question was the only one I actually got to see. I thought it was perfect. Parents are tired of simplistic answers to complex problems. And most parents are tired of our kids not having a broad education that includes art, music, drama, and the rest. We're trying to grow human beings here, not computers. I'll never forget Kerry saying those exact same things to a group of 70 year old farmers in Iowa, and they were loving it too.