Kerry Leaves Bush Scowling

John Kerry was yesterday widely declared the winner of the first presidential debate, after an aggressive performance left a scowling President George Bush sometimes groping for words.

It was, however, too early to tell whether the debate, at Miami University, would be enough for Senator Kerry to close the president's five to 10 percentage point lead in time for the election a month today.

Polls by three networks, CNN, ABC and CBS, showed that viewers declared the Democrat candidate the winner by clear majorities of between nine and 16%. But the surveys also suggested the debate had so far done little to change voting intentions.

Last night Mr Bush attempted to recover lost ground, attacking Mr Kerry's pledge in the debate that, if elected, he would call a summit to seek more international help on Iraq.

"I've been to a lot of summits. I've never seen a meeting that would depose a tyrant or bring a terrorist to justice," Mr Bush said. With him at a campaign rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, was Republican senator John McCain, who told the rally: "My friends, a summit is not a plan."

Presidential debates have historically taken days to work their way through the electorate as they are replayed and analysed in the media, but snap surveys entirely of undecided voters did show that a shift in Mr Kerry's favour was possible.

Democrats capitalised on the event by circulating pictures of a sour-faced Mr Bush, scowling while he listened to his adversary. The image appeared on split screens in the homes of tens of millions Americans, as broadcasters defied guidelines banning the use of such reaction shots.

"What you saw was a president who was annoyed, angry and aloof. He clearly didn't want to be there, and he was slouched over his podium," Terry McCauliffe, the Democratic party chairman, said.

Arguably, Mr Bush should have known better. The broadcast of similar reaction shots of Al Gore in the first presidential debate four years ago dominated coverage in the days after, sapping the Gore campaign and helping put Mr Bush in the White House.

Mr Bush's facial antics aside, there were no fatal gaffes on either side in the course of the 90-minute duel, nor were there any outright winning lines. However, it was widely praised as one of the best presidential debates in recent history, vividly showcasing the divide between the candidates.

They differed sharply on whether the Iraq invasion had been justified - Mr Kerry declared it a "colossal error of judgment" - and on whether the US should do more to assure international support for pre-emptive military action. The Democratic senator said such action would have to pass "a global test" in which "you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons".

Mr Bush declared himself baffled by the phrase "global test" and said: "My attitude is you take pre-emptive action in order to protect the American people, that you act in order to make this country secure."

His strongest moments came on the attack, when he argued that Mr Kerry did not have the determination to project US leadership abroad.

But perhaps the biggest point scored against the senator came from the moderator, journalist Jim Lehrer. Echoing a famous Kerry remark from the Vietnam era, Mr Lehrer asked if he thought US soldiers were dying for a mistake in Iraq. Mr Kerry said they were not, and Republicans pounced on the apparent inconsistency.

"He said the war was a mistake, but he also said he was not asking American soldiers to die for a mistake," Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, said afterwards. "How can you go to the allies and ask them to go in there, if you're saying it's the 'wrong war'?"