Poll Results Suggest More Uncommitted Voters Saw Obama As Debate Winner

[sabra]

Source: CBS News

UPDATED WITH NEAR-FINAL NUMBERS CBS News and Knowledge Networks conducted a nationally representative poll of approximately 500 uncommitted voters reacting to the debate in the minutes after it happened.

Thirty-nine percent of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. Twenty-five percent thought John McCain won. Thirty-six percent saw it as a draw.

Forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama got better tonight. Thirty-one percent said their opinion of McCain got better.

Sixty-six percent of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy. Forty-four percent think McCain would.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/09/26/politics/horser...

[brettdale]

1. You bet me to it

I was just about to post this.

[McCCain4retirment]

2. Those numbers are still a little to high for McCain

[LonelyLRLiberal]

7. You gotta remember these are undecideds - how can anyone be undecided?

To be fair, there are lots of people just trying to keep it going family-wise and financially, and they just don't have time or energy to keep up with the blow-by-blows like some of us can.

[undeterred]

23. Amazingly some people really don't pay attention

till the end. McCain is still more familiar to them than Obama. While most of us didn't see anything new at all last night (although I heard something new about Koreans) that was the first and only time a lot of people will see Obama. A lot of people will decide their vote on the basis of one debate. That's how much time they put into this decision.

[unfrigginreal]

3. K+R

And this was McCains strong suit. LOL

[unfrigginreal]

5. Sorry no rec

guess we can't do that anymore.

[Dead Elephant]

4. Good people need to wake up

McCain looked pathetic on stage. I think if the debate went on longer mount McCain would of erupted

Stop the Drama Vote Obama

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3302...

[BunkerHill24]

6. I bet McSame handlers are now scratching their heads

wondering what more crazy stunts they could come up with....

[Doctor Cynic]

8. FTFA:

Sixty-six percent of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy. Forty-four percent think McCain would.

Uhh...wut?

[4lbs]

9. Evidently this one wasn't an either-or situation.

So, it shouldn't add up to 100%.

Those 500 were asked if Obama would make proper decisions about the economy. 66% said yes.

Then those same 500 were asked if McCain would make proper decisions about the economy. 44% said yes.

Thus, there is a group that thinks they would both make proper decisions about the economy.

[clixtox]

10. These are journalists, not mathematicians!

Probably an arithmetic error, or else the cement-headed ignorance of the 34% was contagious!

[4lbs]

11. No I don't think it was an arithmetic error. Just the way the questions were phrased.

They didn't ask who would make better decisions. Then you would have to get percentages that add up to 100% because that's an either-or situation.

The way they seemed to phrase it, they asked two separate questions it appears.

Q1.) "Would Obama make the proper decisions about the economy"

66% said yes.


Q2.)"Would McCain make the proper decisions about the economy?"

44% said yes.

[LiberalEsto]

14. How true that is!

Journalists are generally bad at math. I was a journalist for many years, so I know what I'm talking about. If a person has good math skills, they usually go into more lucrative fields instead of journalism, where the pay is lousy.

[urgk]

12. An overwhelming 67% thought McCain looked like a pirate waiting for his parrot to land. np

[underpants]

13. THAT is who he has been going after since he won Super Tuesday

The campaign is geared to winning over the middle and he did exactly that last night

[Vinca]

15. I watched it on CNN with their live audience reaction gizmo and

it seemed whenever Obama spoke the graph went up and whenever McBush spoke it flatlined or dipped. At the end, when McBush said the word "prisoner," there was a distinct dip. People are onto him.

[wishlist]

16. Viewers didn't like McCain's over the top mean condescending remarks nt

[krabigirl]

20. 2nd. He looked like a class-less a-hole.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. he shot himself in the foot and the GOP leaders aren't pleased!

apparently the powers that be in the GOP weren't happy with McCain's performance. Look out Obama at the next debate!

[Warren Stupidity]

17. 66-44 Obama better on economy.

This is the dilemma Gramps is in. The only way this election gets to be about his lucky guess on Iraq is if Iraq falls apart again between now and november, and that won't be good for him either. The economic crisis, real or not, is killing McCain, and he knows it.

[DeepModem Mom]

18. K&R

[earthlover]

19. I predict Obama to go up in the polls as a result of the debate

Why? Because Obama looked presidential, confident, and showed he had a firm grasp on the commander in chief "issue". I think this has been a huge thing for Obama to overcome, people not being sure he has what it takes to be commander in chief. Largely because of his age, lack of foreign policy experience, and perhaps a little bit of hesitancy that a black would be up for the job in the first place. I think Obama, more than anything else, showed he is ready to be commander in chief, and this was a key part of McCain's talking points, that he is not ready.

I think it should be clear than most viewers think now that both McCain and Obama are ready to be president. This is HUGE! If they view both as capable, a lot of folks who have been holding back are going to support Obama, because on the issues the Democrats and Obama have a huge advantage in this election.

What's more, I think he not only held his own, I think he connected more than McCain to boot!

I couldn't be happier with what transpired last night!

I worry a little about the VP debate, though. The expectations for Palin are now so low, that if she follows her script and doesn't make a goof, she is going to exceed expectations. She is so out of her league, however, that she will probably goof up anyhow.

If we sail past the vp debate with no major shift, then there are only two debates left, and I think by then Obama is going to have a stronger lead.

It will get harder and harder for McCain to come back, particularly if he cannot sell people on the idea that Obama isn't ready to be president. Obama's entire demeanor and preparedness last night showed time after time that, in spite of what McCain says, Obama is ready.

Bring it on!!

[fed_up_mother]

21. A draw is still a win on our side. He met the "presidential" bar. He exceeded it, in fact.

[sop]

22. After the poll came out the TV shouters changed their tune

I was watching Chris Matthews and MSNBC's cast of shouting pundits immediately after the debate. Seconds after the debate concluded, their evaluation was that McCain had "won on points", that Obama had deferred to McCain in too many instances and been too nice, and that McCain had been really aggressive and on "top of his game". That storyline was quickly becoming the popular myth among the assembled media brain trust. Pat Buchanan was pushing it strongly, shouting it at the top of his lungs, sounding like the know-it-all drunk at the end of the bar.

Then the post-debate poll results started coming out. The CBS independent voters poll showed Obama beat McCain among undecideds by a wide margin. CNN's response meter was also showing Obama on top. As usual, after the real numbers started coming in the corporate pundits started changing their tune.

[fascisthunter]

24. Obama Came Off Cool and Calm, While Nuty McCain came off Nervous and Nutty

[IndianaGreen]

25. On McCain: "low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys"

And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it ...

I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear--look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior--low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.

So McCain may have given away his status as a low-ranking monkey. I'd never even considered monkey rank.

Late Monkey Science Update: In case anyone's wondering, I looked up TPM Reader TB's page at the University he teaches at. And no doubt about it, he appears to be a genuine monkey scientist, or to be more specific a researcher on social cognition and behavior in primates. I'd link to his page. But readers remain anonymous, save for their initials, until they tell us otherwise.

--Josh Marshall

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com /