Is Hillary Toast?

[Starlight]

Sanders' answer on gun regulations won't play with the majority, I think.

I agree. It had me cringing. He needs to get a better answer.

I would be surprised if polls shifted much from this. If they don't, Sanders didn't win and Clinton didn't lose so I'd say Clinton won.

The online polls since my last post have increased to 74% Sanders won vs 17% Hillary won. Experience from the Republican debates shows that the online polls as to who won the debate correlate well to an immediate rise in national poll numbers in the following two weeks. So Sanders can definitely expect a 5-10% immediate rise in national poll numbers from this.

O'Malley did well for a VP campaign, I thought.

Maybe. He sounded a bit too much like a "politician" with a bit of a sleezy vibe going on.

Webb just came off as whiny. Hint for presidential campaigners: if you're polling under 1%, don't expect or gripe about equal talk time. Life ain't fair.

1000% true. He was right though. Timing breakdown says:
Clinton 30:25
Sanders 27:41
O'Malley 17:08
Webb 15:20
Chafee 9:05

But Webb wasted half of his time whining about not having more time, which endears him to no one.

[Sam]

Maybe. He sounded a bit too much like a "politician" with a bit of a sleezy vibe going on.

[Starlight]

It's weird... political commentators across the board are saying Hillary won the debate by miles, but every single poll is saying Sanders won by miles. The disconnect between the two seems really strange to me, not least because I personally thought it was a bit of a draw. This Telegraph article best exemplifies that disconnect, with 7 of 7 journalists ruling that Hillary won the debate, and writing a paragraph each saying it wasn't even close and she won by miles. Yet their public polling on the same page has votes of:
Sanders +7.2k up-votes / -499 down-votes
O'Malley +1.2k / -2.2k
Clinton +1.4k / -3.3k
Webb +437 / -3.1k
Chafee +289 / -3.1k

Sanders is the only candidate in that list with a positive like to dislike ratio, and he's crushing it: 15 likes per single dislike! (That's not just victory, that's utter and complete crushing domination) Those kind of ratings are fairly consistent with what I'm seeing on other websites as well. Time Magazine's poll two hours ago showed a similar result with Sanders crushing Hillary 74% to 17% (strangely, something very funky is going weird with that poll now, and Jim Webb has been climbing steadily on it for the past two hours, to surpass Hillary... I'm filing that in the 'technical glitch' category). The Fox News poll shows a similar 77% to 17% margin in favor of Sanders, and their focus group which seems surprisingly fair and balanced also had a very similar qualitative outcome.

But journalists and political experts are almost unanimous across the web in ruling it a victory for Hillary (aside from TYT who unanimously ruled it a Sanders victory, but they're biased). I'm not sure what to make of it. Is this a case of the establishment telling the people "Hillary is our candidate, therefore she won"? I would think that if it weren't for the case that I watched the debate myself, and as a Sanders supporter I didn't really feel that he crushed it, and several times I was left cringing at how he phrased things, and overall I thought both he and Hillary gave solidly good performances that I would rate about 8/10. So I'm confused.

Hmm, over at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver's team of 15 ranked Hillary just slightly ahead of Sanders, but noted that Sanders dominated the google searches throughout the debate, and gained vastly more twitter followers than Hillary... which is yet another example of populist support for Sanders as compared to experienced politics-watchers judging Hillary the winner.

[Starlight]

Other people across the internet appear to have noticed this discrepancy and they are less-than-thrilled:

media1.jpg
The tweet at the top says "If this does not prove how out of touch the American media is, nothing will. #DemDebate", in case it's unreadable... (TWeb's default attached image size needs enlargening methinks!)
Whereas CNN's own user poll had an 81% victory for Sanders.

Also, CNN has filled their facebook page with links to articles about how Clinton won, which has led to more than a few users being rather unhappy:
media2.jpg

Other tweets that are on point include:
"That awkward moment when all @Telegraph pundits vote Hillary and readers Bernie"

"Every poll shows @BernieSanders dominated the #DemDebate. Yet, @cnn, @nytimes & @TIME refuse to face the reality."

[rogue06]

Slate has it at 75% for Sanders, 18% Clinton, 3% both for O'Malley and Webb, and 1% for Chafee.

Time has it at 63% for Sanders, 22% Webb, 13% Clinton, 2% O'Malley, and 1% Chafee.

Daily Kos has it at 59% for Sanders, 34% Clinton, 2% O'Malley, and 1% for both Webb and Chafee.

syracuse.com has it at 78.85% for Sanders, 15.19% Clinton, 2.8% Webb, 2.32% O'Malley, and 0.84% Chafee.

MSNBC has it at 84% for Sanders, 11% Clinton, 2% Webb, 1% O'Malley, and less than 1% Chafee.

The Street has it at 78% for Sanders, 17% Clinton, 3% Webb, 2% O'Malley, and 1% Chafee.

Drudge has it at 62% for Sanders, 22% Webb, 7% Clinton, 6% O'Malley, and 4% Chafee.

It should be noted that these polls are very "informal" and "unscientific" and say more about which candidate has supporters who are motivated to go online and cast their vote in these polls than anything else.

[Starlight]

Thanks for that Rogue.

Another way of measuring success is campaign donations, I guess:

MaryAlice Parks @maryaliceparks 2h2 hours ago
.@BernieSanders campaign says it raised more than $1.3 million in first four hours after debate began - 37,600 individual contributions

MaryAlice Parks @maryaliceparks 2h2 hours ago
More - @BernieSanders campaign says $100,000 raised in the five minutes after the debate ended and at peak ten contributions per second

Ten donations per second is nuts. A lot of people apparently were happy to put their money where their mouse-clicks are and donate their cash rather than simply voting in online polls. (I don't have comparison figures for Clinton, but offhand I'd say there's no chance her donations were anything remotely close to that)


PS. I'm thinking one possible explanation for the differences in people's views of who won, could perhaps be explained by who watched the debate vs who listened to it. Historically that difference has been quite important in different presidential debates, and is well-known to drive ratings (Roger Ailes, for example, famously constantly has Fox News on with the sound off in order to ensure that it visually looks right because that's crucial). I listened to most of the debate rather than watching it, and I suspect that the vast majority of political journalists would have done the same - as they would be busy jotting down notes, sending out tweets, writing blogs, writing articles etc. Whereas your average person would have watched it. So it's quite possible that Sanders won the debate among those who watched it, and Hillary among those who listened to it...?

[rogue06]

Watching and listening do seem to make a difference. IIRC, those who listened to the Nixon-Kennedy debates on the radio said that Nixon easily walked away with it. They didn't see him sweating nervously and looking rough because he refused make up. Similarly, when Bush and Gore debated those who merely listened wouldn't have seen Gore walk right up to Bush while the latter was responding as if he sought to physically intimidate him. That was a cringe worthy moment for Gore (especially since Bush handled it so well) and became one of the most talked about moments of the night.

[Starlight]

Watching and listening do seem to make a difference. IIRC, those who listened to the Nixon-Kennedy debates on the radio said that Nixon easily walked away with it. They didn't see him sweating nervously and looking rough because he refused make up. Similarly, when Bush and Gore debated those who merely listened wouldn't have seen Gore walk right up to Bush while the latter was responding as if he sought to physically intimidate him. That was a cringe worthy moment for Gore (especially since Bush handled it so well) and became one of the most talked about moments of the night.

It's possible it's simply a matter of the fact that Sanders had the best line of the night ("The American people are sick of hearing about your emails!") and delivered it in a way that was pro-Hillary to the point where she shook his hand smiling in thanks for defending her - yet the words themselves don't reflect well on her. People tend to remember extreme events best, and a remarkable clear-eyed Fox focus group narrowed in on that as being a decisive point:

[rogue06]

It's possible it's simply a matter of the fact that Sanders had the best line of the night ("The American people are sick of hearing about your emails!") and delivered it in a way that was pro-Hillary to the point where she shook his hand smiling in thanks for defending her - yet the words themselves don't reflect well on her. People tend to remember extreme events best, and a remarkable clear-eyed Fox focus group narrowed in on that as being a decisive point:

Wait. You watched Fox News?!? I thought that would cause you to burst into flame sort of like a vampire being exposed to sunlight.

[Starlight]

Wait. You watched Fox News?!? I thought that would cause you to burst into flame sort of like a vampire being exposed to sunlight.

My favorite youtube news host mentioned Frank Luntz's focus group research on Twitter during the debate. Just because 99% of what Fox does is propaganda, it doesn't mean they can't sometimes do decent journalism. Megan Kelly sometimes asks the hard questions, Shep Smith sometimes tells it like it is, and apparently Luntz who I'd not heard of until now seems like he does quality empirical focus-group research.

And I see plenty of Fox segments because the Daily Show tends to feature 1-2 clips each day, and mocks the lies in it. So on the whole I probably see vastly more Fox than CNN or MSNBC.

[Cow Poke]

Just because 99% of what Fox does is propaganda

As oppose to 99.999% of what you type?

[Mountain Man]

...a remarkable clear-eyed Fox focus group...

I think you mean "a typical clear-eyed Fox focus group".

In other news, a lot of pundits on both sides are saying that the best line of the night didn't come from the debate stage but from Donald Trump on Twitter!

"Notice that illegal immigrants will be given ObamaCare and free college tuition but nothing has been mentioned about our VETERANS"

Even TIME.com declared Trump a winner last night.

[Mountain Man]

Reading through some of the responses to Trump's Tweet, I stumbled across this classic low-info rejoinder:

""

[lilpixieofterror]

My favorite youtube news host mentioned Frank Luntz's focus group research on Twitter during the debate. Just because 99% of what Fox does is propaganda, it doesn't mean they can't sometimes do decent journalism. Megan Kelly sometimes asks the hard questions, Shep Smith sometimes tells it like it is, and apparently Luntz who I'd not heard of until now seems like he does quality empirical focus-group research.

And I see plenty of Fox segments because the Daily Show tends to feature 1-2 clips each day, and mocks the lies in it. So on the whole I probably see vastly more Fox than CNN or MSNBC.

Anybody else find it entertaining how dimbulb complains about people, who dare to disagree with him, 'living in a right-wing bubble' while he continues to show he lives in a 'left-wing bubble' (IE The Daily Show soundbites, given by a hypocritical comedian, seem to be about as far as he goes in 'listening to the other side')? Par the course, more hypocrisy and double standards from his mouth and yet he wonders why I call him 'dimbulb.'

[lilpixieofterror]

As oppose to 99.999% of what you type?

Haven't you figured it out yet CP? Anything that dares to disagree with dimbulb = propaganda and everything that agrees with him = absolute truth that can never be questioned. It's his world, we're just living in it.