You’ve got to hand it to the Republican operatives running the Bush campaign. They’re awesome at P.R. They took the fact that Kerry won medals in Vietnam while Bush won favors in the National Guard and twisted it into a net negative for Kerry. They’ve got some folks convinced that Democrats would ban the Bible and allow France to veto American foreign policy. And they should win an award for messaging that gay rights are derived from activist judges intent on implementing the homosexual agenda.

Of course, the Bush campaign has given itself a huge P.R. advantage by freeing itself of the requirement that the messaging actually be true.

The Kerry campaign is totally hogtied by this. Choosing to play by a set of rules more heavily encumbered by ethics, they can’t bring themselves to trumpet falsehoods of their own and are thus relegated to less effective strategies like focusing on the president’s record. But lost jobs and trampled liberties aren’t nearly as alarming to the American public as the prospect that activist judges will hand over the country to the atheist homosexuals from France. The Bush campaign wins the 30-second ad wars.

Thank goodness for last week’s debate. It’s a little harder to just make stuff up about your opponent when he’s inconveniently standing right there. Kerry’s presence at the debate clearly irritated Bush. Trapped in a forum where truthfulness suddenly mattered, Bush couldn’t find much to say. He looked hapless and annoyed as though he were stuck in a room full of gays asking for equal rights.

With the candidates together and rules the same, Kerry scored repeatedly. Most effective perhaps was his succinct response to the Bush campaign’s charge of flip-flopping. Kerry finally made clear that it’s perfectly consistent to vote in favor of military action based on the information provided but then withdraw that support when that information proves false and when the war is incompetently run.

Bush responded by reiterating that he and Kerry had the same information and reached the same conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a threat. But by this time, people were realizing that the point was that when the initial conclusion proved to be based upon bad information, Kerry reconsidered his position in light of the facts while Bush stubbornly pursued the war regardless.

Bush was left with the flimsy argument that a leader must stick to his original position even if it is discredited. That way you’re consistent, people know where you stand, you avoid mixed messages and you demonstrate certainty. Bush would make a great Pope. But while many good Catholics can essentially ignore the quainter positions of the church, Americans can’t just roll their eyes at the government. There’s too much at stake and it’s far more important for the president to get it right than to appear certain. Leadership doesn’t require certainty. It does require the ability to adapt effectively to new information and ideas.

Given his decision to proceed with the war, Bush claimed that he is running it well. His argument seemed to go something like: We are succeeding in Iraq, and if not, it’s because we scored victory too quickly, and if not, it’s because it’s hard work.

Bush was able to credibly claim two successes: Saddam Hussein is in jail and many terrorists have been captured or killed. It’s the cost-benefit analysis that gets sticky. It’s good that Hussein is jailed but is it worth 1,000-plus American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars when he posed little real threat to our country? Capturing terrorists is good, too, but they’re a dime a dozen. Until you catch Osama bin Laden and other network leaders and create an international environment less likely to propagate terrorism, you haven’t made much progress.

The costs have been incredible. Kerry pointed effectively to the lost lives, the damaged foreign relations, the diversion of money from domestic programs and the failure to monitor other priorities like nuclear proliferation in North Korea.

Kerry also outlined how he would do things differently, rebuilding alliances and involving other nations to spread out the costs, focusing more resources on bringing bin Laden to justice, working to diffuse the nuclear tension with North Korea and reducing tax cuts for the wealthy and using the money to improve domestic security.

Kerry’s was a much more compelling approach to foreign policy based on national security, cooperation with other nations and good sense. A productive foreign policy is as important to Republicans as it is to Democrats. People, from both parties, who don’t like either candidate, have now had a chance to compare them. Advantage: Kerry.