I haven't seen any comment here yet on what I considered to be one of Kerry's best moments in last night's debate. When asked by Jim Lehrer what he considered to be the most serious threat to the national security to the United States, Kerry answered "nuclear proliferation". A brilliant answer!
Focusing on the issue of nuclear proliferation reframes the issue of the terrorist threat in a way that plays to Kerry's strengths while hitting Bush on an issue that he looks particularly bad on. Kerry has often been criticized by the Bush campaign for not running on his record, but on this issue he can point to specific examples where he has acted to help prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, including his support for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and his role in the BCCI investigation (BCCI was found to be involved in the sale of nuclear technologies, among other criminal enterprises)
By contrast, as this Daily Kos diary points out, Bush has flip-flopped on the issue of non-proliferation, he has pulled out of treaties intended to halt proliferation and, as Kerry pointed out in the debate, Bush has failed in the most fundamental way by allowing both North Korea and Iran to further their nuclear weapons programs under his watch.
Lastly, Kerry's response on this clearly caught Bush off-guard. One can assume that he expected Kerry to claim that the greatest threat would be the terrorist threat - a concept that the Bush administration has successfully framed as broadly as possible so as to suit their purposes whatever they may be. Kerry didn't take the bait and Bush ended up going off message in his response, saying that he actually agreed with Kerry on this point, something which Jim Lehrer was kind enough to get him to reiterate.
The Kerry campaign needs to go on the offensive on this, hammering home that Kerry's record on non-proliferation is strong and consistent and Bush's is weak and inconsistent.