I think mentioning the words Flip-flop, waffles, [texas air] national guard, vietnam in relation to presidential candidates or anything that happened more than ten years ago that involved either men should be grounds for immediate temporary banning in this forum until after the election
(And I am completely serious about this too.
)
Onto the question, this election will really come down to Iraq, we all know that. Mostly a referendum on how Bush is handling it, and What kerry will do to right it. Kerry needs to use his time now to get the message out to the American people what he will do to make it better and what Bush has done to get us where we are.
Beyond that a development in the Valerie Plame case, with indictments of high ranking officials would work wonders to blow the race wide open for Kerry.
Overall I believe Kerry will be the undeniable winner in the debates. The Democrats have a new language expert, George Lakoff to help Kerry begin to frame his messages. Positive framing is something we have been lagging far behind on for too long.
The second debate especially where the candidates have to field questions from the audience I think will be the one where Kerry really pulls ahead as Bush has proven himself unable to think on his feet. He will hold his own in the two where he can work on message though.