A sense of change hung over the early part of the weekend, beginning Thursday night and lasting until early Saturday, for the most part. As I sit here on Sunday night, the TV dark because lousy Time Warner Cable has been having problems in town today, and of course the offices are closed and there's only so much the answering service can tell you. I was gyped out of the final day of my Major League Baseball Extra Innings package, so I could not watch the Houston Astros complete their improbable comeback and clinch the wild card to reach the playoffs. And, thankfully, we'll hear no more of Barry Bonds this season; the Giants are done.

On Thursday, I sat here quietly, my computer open so I could dabble here and there, but from 9-11 p.m., my attention was aimed at the television. Not that such a thing is unusual, but it turns out I was overly impressed by John Kerry during the presidential debate.

Here are my main problems with President Bush:
� His careless tax cuts may have provided brief relief to those who needed it most, but now they're useless for the middle- and lower-class. He and every other rich person in America can enjoy their extra quarter-million each year while our deficit widens at an alarming rate.
� He misled the American people to fulfill a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. I don't deny that Saddam was a problem, but he wasn't an imminent one. Osama bin Laden was and is, and as Kerry pointed out, soldiers and money were diverted from the hunt for the true terrorist and sent into Baghdad. I don't even need to get into what a mess it's become and how he clearly did not think this thing through.
� He's arrogant and stubborn. His idol, Ronald Reagan, cut taxes when he took office too. When the deficit soared and the economy struggled, Reagan made adjustments. Bush pushes ahead and calls for an extension of the tax cuts. I'll still be paying for this decades from now, I feel.
� To me, his administration -- the government in general right now -- appears rife with shady alliances and back-door dealings. Nearly every single one of his federal court appointees has one alarming court decision in his -- rarely her -- background, from questions of racism and bigotry to justices who believe a woman's first responsibility is to be subservient to her husband. And Florida, again, is a mess, with the president's brother as governor and an elections official carrying on the shady legacy of Katherine Harris from 2000.
� Bush's main focus is on leaving a legacy and his own interests, and the actions he's taken in four years are those of a man who wants to get as much done while he can, in case he's not around for four more years to get everything done. He and his administration have manipulated the fact since Day 1, whether it's on Iraq or the environment or the economy. Our schools aren't stronger, our country's less safe, our environment's crumbling, our allies are angry with us, our enemies are more furious at us. Just today I was reading how we're building a missle defense system (the first component went active in Alaska recently) but it's only been tested in clear weather when the operators knew the launch time and trajectory of the intended target. Basically, for the system to work as it's designed, it will be at least 10 more years of improvements. Meanwhile, we've done little to nothing to protect everything but the airlines -- nuclear power plants, trains, seaports and the containers that pass through them. Sometimes I wonder what life is like in the White House and Crawford, Texas, because it's clearly not the same world I see.

Thursday's debate clearly showed that John Kerry knows what he's doing, he knows what he's talking about, and he knows how he wants to lead this country. I thought his answer to the first question was weak -- I repeatedly said out loud to myself, "Osama bin Laden -- say it! Say the name!" -- but then I realized that he was just warming up. Osama's name was mentioned the second time Kerry spoke, and dozens of times after that. Throughout the night, Kerry was strong, decisive and clear. He regularly brought up new points and statistics to get his point across or challenge Bush. The President, on the other hand, continuously fell back on a half-dozen arguments, unable to find another way to get his point across or criticize Kerry's comments. I likened it to a math tutor who's trying to teach you how to solve an algebra word problem. There are certain formulas and applications you'll need to understand and be able to use to solve the problem. Only, you're having trouble grasping the concept. Your tutor, unable to explain it any other way, continues to repeat his instructions the only way he knows how, figuring that if he says it enough times, you'll come around. That's George Bush.

Perhaps the best part was that Kerry did not give the Bush campaign anything new to attack. Lord knows they've done enough of it already. Nevermind that attack politics seems to work in this country of shallow people -- I consider it a sign of weakness. If you have to resort to digging up minuitae about your opponent in order to win an election, you clearly don't have enough faith in your own views. Tell me why I should vote for you, not why I shouldn't vote for your opponent. Kerry got Bush good at one point, explaining that the Iraq war was misconceived. Bush countered by saying "they attacked us," meaning Saddam, which clearly is not the case. Even Rudy Giulliani became repetitive afterwards, speaking on NBC's "postgame," as I call it, and later on a live broadcast of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Rudy criticized Kerry for saying Iraq was the wrong war and how can he then be expected to be commander in chief to those soldiers he's now just told are risking their lives for the wrong war. Jon Stewart called him on it, correctly pointing out that Kerry's actual words -- he made a point to say that he hadn't spoken clearly when he first mentioned it on the campaign trail -- were that the war wasn't wrong, the way Bush took us into war was wrong.

In the end, I thought it looked quite good for Kerry. He was strong, relaxed and composed. He was smooth -- not slick in a sleazy sort of way, but confident. Bush started out that way, but then stumbled and stammered as the debate wore on and he had to resort to looking the camera dead-on and bobbing his head in an effort to ram home a point for the seventh time.

My one real criticism of the debate falls on both Kerry and moderator Jim Lehrer. One of the early questions -- either the second overall, Bush's first; or the second question directed at the president -- was "Mr. President, do you believe that if John Kerry is elected, the United States will be at greater risk of a terrorist attack?" Bush began his response by saying, "First of all, let me just say that I don't think it's going to happen because I think we're going to win ..." He then went on to discuss his platform and he never answered the question. Lehrer didn't call him on it, didn't ask him to address the root of the question more specifically -- a mere "yes" or "no" is about as simple and specific as he could have gotten -- and neither did Kerry in his response. It's telling that he didn't say the obvious safe answer of "No, I don't think that." Of course, that answer isn't so safe when Dick Cheney's been going around flat-out threatening that America will be attacked if Kerry is elected. It's a different sort of smear tactics, another clear move of desperation that the Bush/Cheney ticket has to resort to scare tactics to steal another victory.

Following Thursday night's optimistic debate, I left work early on Friday to attend the first Vote For Change concert in Philadelphia. Hideous traffic direction meant that we parked far beyond the new ballpark, where the Phillies were playing the Marlins, and had a 15-minute walk past the field, across a street, past the old Spectrum and in the new Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Eagles. We listened to the last few songs of Bright Eyes' set from the concourse, eating our fries and pretzels, and then walked to our seats during the break. It was my first live R.E.M. concert, a blast, and though they played one of my favorites, "Cuyahoga," the next night in Ohio, we've got tickets to see them in their own show in November in New York, so there's another chance. For the most part, their set was upbeat and inspired ... and then Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band came out. (Bruce appeared onstage earlier, trading verses with Michael Stipe on "Man On The Moon," a surreal experience, as Casey called it.) Springsteen's own set began with a lights-down, solo rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his 12-string guitar, and then the whole band jumped into "Born In The U.S.A.," the first of several songs with lyrics to fit the mood and the purpose of the night. "Born In The U.S.A.," a now 20-year-old look at the Vietnam War from a cynical perspective, is well-known, particularly from Ronald Reagan's attempts to use it as a campaign song and Bruce's subsequent letters to request he stop doing so, even suggesting that Reagan hadn't really listened closely to the song's message.

"Badlands" followed, with the line: "Poor man wanna be rich/Rich man wanna be king/And a king ain't satisified/'til he rules everything." Then came "No Surrender," a song Kerry's used with his campaign, and "Lonesome Day," off the 9/11-inspired The Rising. "Lost In The Flood," a dark, early tune off his debut album was next, telling the story of street racers and gangs that find themselves in a shootout in New York City. "I wondered what he was thinking when he hit that storm, or was he just lost in the flood?"

The band came alive -- and a bit countryfied -- on "Johnny 99," and continued with "Youngstown." The latter was quite apropros, a look at the history of the blue-collar Ohio city that's watched the jobs go elsewhere over the years.

The show took a turn there, when John Fogerty came out and the E Street Band backed him on "Centerfield," "Deja Vu All Over Again," and another Vietnam-era song of angst, "Fortunate Son." Fogerty left, Bruce and the band played "The Rising," and then Stipe returned to sing lead on "Because The Night." After "Mary's Place," R.E.M. guitarists Mike Mills and Peter Buck brought two more guitars to "Born To Run" while Stipe watched from just offstage in his white suit and danced along. Fogerty then returned for "Proud Mary" before the final encore with the entire bill -- Bright Eyes returned along with Fogerty and Stipe, Mills and Buck. They started with "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" and capped off the night with Patti Smith's "People Have The Power."

After seeing Bruce at Giants and Shea stadiums last year, it was good to be back in an arena with him. It's a different kind of show, and Casey could see the difference. We stood with our section for the entire show, save for a few verses of the slower "Lost In The Flood" and, if I remember correctly, "Deja Vu All Over Again." On top of that bar band atmosphere was the political purpose of the show. It did not have the stale feel of a political rally or partisan policy-pushing gathering. To me, it felt like a full-on party, a celebration of hope and optimism. If this were post-election (a Kerry win, natch) -- and if I'd ever been to one before and had a point of reference -- this is what I would think an inaugural gala might feel like, though on a much grander scale.

Things have seemed pretty bleak in the world view for three years now, and I can't help but look ahead and see a potential second Bush term as nothing but more of the same -- and a certain spiral into further doom and gloom. But Friday night's show conveyed a sense of hope and change on the way.