From the New Republic (more good stuff):

The first inkling that the Bushies know their man didn’t do so well comes minutes after the debate ends when Karl Rove walks into the press filing center. Like a game of telephone, the conventional wisdom that Kerry won the debate is already seeping out across the sea of journalists in the room. Into this skeptical ether, Rove tries out a line: “It was one of the president’s better debate performances and one of Kerry’s worst.” Vince Morris of The New York Post stares at Rove and asks, “Can you say that with a straight face?”

. . .

Bush demanded that those little warning lights be prominently displayed on the podium to embarrass Kerry when he delivered long-winded answers. The opposite happened. The tight time limits helped Kerry — always at his best when on deadline — control his message. Instead the lights served to emphasize that Bush didn’t always have enough to say to fill out his time. In previous debates Bush would sometimes answer a question with a short declarative sentence and a sharp nod of the head. The lights would have made this embarrassing, and at times Bush started repeating stock lines and seemed as though he were filibustering. The Kerry campaign used the lights brilliantly. Before the debate they even mischievously demanded that the lights be removed when in fact they knew they would help Kerry. “We protested too much on the lights and you all fell for it,” Joe Lockhart told me.

. . .

As for why Bush seemed so irritated, one explanation is that his efforts to cut himself off from criticism and tough questions have backfired. Perhaps his penchants for limiting press conferences and campaigning only among his most ardent supporters have lowered his tolerance for the kind of relentless challenging he faced during the debate.

. . .

Out on the stump where he can get away with it, Bush often campaigns against a caricatured version of John Kerry, a straw man who takes all sorts of radical positions. Bush’s problem last night was that he continued to debate that straw man instead of the person who actually showed up on stage.

I still fear that the Bushies are playing the expectations game, though. There are still two debates left; Kerry could get overconfident and Bush could come roaring back. We’ll see.