After months of campaigning across the United States,presidential candidates George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry agreedyesterday to meet each other face-to-face for three debates beforethe Nov. 2 elections. Negotiations were made by former Secretary ofState James A. Baker III for Bush and attorney Vernon Johnson forKerry.
Sept. 30 at the University of Miami in CoralGables; Oct. 8 at Washington University in St. Louis; and Oct. 13at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., have been the datesselected by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates forthe presidential debates. A vice presidential debate has beenscheduled for Oct. 5 between Vice President Dick Cheney and Kerry’srunning mate Sen. John Edwards.
According to Associated Press reports, theKerry campaign agreed to the commission’s proposal for themoderators, dates and venues last month during which time the Bushcampaign would not commit.
Although the debates are slated to be theprimary tool used by Americans to cast their votes, a pollconducted by the Pew Research Center, found that 68 percent ofthose surveyed claimed their minds were already made up, while only29 percent said they would have an affect on they way their voteswere cast.
Amid the announcement of these monumentaldebates that will decide the future of America for the next fouryears, President Bush continued to attack what he called Kerry’s”pattern of twisting in the wind,” during Monday’s campaigntrial.
Kerry, who campaigned in New York yesterday,maintains that the Bush administration traded a dictator for chaosand has left America less secure. Reuters reports however, that theMassachusetts senator said in battles against Howard Dean inDecember that those who didn’t believe Saddam’s removal made thecountry safer did not have the credibility to be elected.
Current polls show Bush trailing Kerry by fourpercent while Ralph Nader only holds two percent of the expectedvote.
Log on to www.johnkerry.com and www.georgebush.com for moreinformation about the platforms of the two presidentialcandidates.
