What Are Those Squiggly Lines on CNN Actually For? Ratings?

Sam Boyd, writing for the American Prospect, has an excellent point about the viewer dials that CNN uses during the debate. All my wife and I could tell is that McCain supporters liked what McCain was saying, Obama supporters liked what Obama was saying, and independents liked everything:

CNN has seized on the visual power of dial-testing data -- the positions of each dial are aggregated and the resulting numbers are plotted as a line on a graph with the vertical axis representing how positive people feel and the horizontal line representing the time -- as a way to modernize the look of its debate coverage. "If you look at all my colleagues' coverage of the debate, it looks like it could have been done 25 years ago," explains CNN election-coverage producer David Bohrman, who made the decision to broadcast dial-testing results during the debate.

But, besides goosing CNN's ratings, what exactly is the point of broadcasting dial-testing results during a debate? (Both Fox and MSNBC use dial-testing groups for post-debate analysis but do not put the results on screen during the debate.) Skeptics of the network's use of dial-testing point to uncertainty over the meaning of the results, problems with the composition of focus groups, and the distorting effect of watching the debate with a dial in hand. CNN counters that displaying the results keeps viewers engaged and gives them a baseline against which to measure their reactions.

Biden Clear Winner in Early Polls After Debate

Sen. Joe Biden scored well in overnight polling after his vice-presidential debate with Gov. Sarah Palin, providing more bad news for the Republican ticket that has been faltering in the past two weeks.

An unscientific poll on AOL shows Biden winning 48 percent to 45 percent. MSNBC's unscientific poll had Biden winning 78.6 percent to 18.9 percent, which is not surprising given the liberal demographics of the network's viewers. But what was more eye-catching is that FOX News' unscientific poll has Biden up 61-39.

Other polls included the CNN/Opinion Research poll, which has Biden up 51-36, and CBS, who has Biden winning 46-21.

In the CBS poll, of the uncommitted voters, 18 percent now say they will vote Obama/Biden, while 10 percent now say McCain/Palin.

The CNN poll concluded that the results of the debate cannot be welcome news for the McCain-Palin campaign.

Fact Checking Palin and Biden

Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin stood at the podiums last night to show America how both can distort the facts. Factcheck.org ran through their claims and came up with these notes:

Palin mistakenly claimed that troop levels in Iraq had returned to “pre-surge” levels. Levels are gradually coming down but current plans would have levels higher than pre-surge numbers through early next year, at least.
Biden incorrectly said “John McCain voted the exact same way” as Obama on a controversial troop funding bill. The two were actually on opposite sides.

Palin repeated a false claim that Obama once voted in favor of higher taxes on “families” making as little as $42,000 a year. He did not. The budget bill in question called for an increase only on singles making that amount, but a family of four would not have been affected unless they made at least $90,000 a year.
Biden wrongly claimed that McCain “voted the exact same way” as Obama on the budget bill that contained an increase on singles making as little as $42,000 a year. McCain voted against it. Biden was referring to an amendment that didn't address taxes at that income level.

Palin claimed McCain’s health care plan would be “budget neutral,” costing the government nothing. Independent budget experts estimate McCain's plan would cost tens of billions each year, though details are too fuzzy to allow for exact estimates.

Biden wrongly claimed that McCain had said "he wouldn't even sit down" with the president of Spain. Actually, McCain didn't reject a meeting, but simply refused to commit himself one way or the other during an interview.

Palin wrongly claimed that “millions of small businesses” would see tax increases under Obama’s tax proposals. At most, several hundred thousand business owners would see increases.

For full details on these misstatements, and on additional factual disputes and dubious claims, please read on to the Analysis section.

Biden-Palin Debate Blogging Starts

I can't put as much attention to the debate as I'd like to because I am still in my office. I have put some links on my main page to more active bloggers tonight.

But from what I have seen Gov. Sarah Palin is struggling with some answers. She just had a difficult time talking about energy independence and global warming.

Sen. Joe Biden has looked smoothed and confident in the early going.

Palin called out Wall Street’s "greed" for giving out loans for "$300,000" homes when the homeowner "can only afford $100,000." Comparing the practice to predatory lending. At one point Palin says paying taxes in not patriotic. Patriotism is getting government out of the way.

Biden tosses in a reference to "a bridge to nowhere," calling all the disagreements over taxes -- who raised them and who didn’t -- bogus.

Later, Palin brought up the point that Biden had once said he would run on a ticket with McCain and that Obama is not ready to be president. She snapped at Biden when he mentioned Obama’s vote to cut off funding for the troops — “That’s another story,” she says.

Biden pointed out that McCain has also voted against funding for the troops.

Palin, trying to distance herself from George Bush, said, "There have been huge blunders throughout this administration."

Ifill reminds both candidates that they would be a heartbeat from the presidency. Both respond by saying, God forbid, it would be a horrible event. I'm not quite sure what Ifill wanted out of that question, other than to make a point that McCain is older than Obama?

Both candidates try to be more of a supporter of Israel than the other.

I'm not sure how many people just won their office pool as Palin used the line "Say it isn't so, Joe?"

Thank you for sticking with me during the night, I had a surprisingly high number of people joining me. Time to go over to MSNBC to see how Biden won, or to FOX to see how Palin won, your choice.

C-SPAN Streaming Palin-Biden Debate Live

Live streaming of the vice presidential debate can be found here via C-SPAN.

McCain Says Ifill Is 'Totally Objective' and Should Moderate the Debate

Sen. John McCain said this afternoon that he sees no problem with PBS' Gwen Ifill moderating tomorrow night's vice presidential debate between Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden despite a possible conflict of interest in that she stands to make a lot of money with a Democrat victory in the fall elections because she has written a pro-Obama book.

FOX’s Carl Cameron, interviewing the Arizona senator this afternoon, asked McCain whether Ifill should excuse herself as the debate moderator. McCain said there is a potential conflict of interest but expressed confidence in the longtime journalist.

“I think that Gwen Ifill is a professional and I think that she will do a totally objective job because she is a highly respected professional,” McCain said during an interview at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. “Does this help…if she has written a book that’s favorable to Senator Obama? Probably not. But I have confidence that Gwen Ifill will do a professional job and I have that confidence.”

Campaign officials said they did not know about the book until today even though Ifill’s upcoming publication was mentioned in a Sept. 4 Washington Post profile.

See this article posted earlier today that examines Ifill's possible conflict of interest.

Soldier's Father Says Mother Asked Obama to Stop Wearing Bracelet Bearing Son's Name

The father of Sgt. Ryan David Jopek, who was killed in Iraq, has said that his ex-wife (and mother of the slain soldier) gave the bracelet bearing Jopek's name to Sen. Barack Obama but now has asked the presidential candidate to stop wearing it in public, according to Jack Tapper of ABC News. The bracelet had become a discussion point during Friday's debate, and the mother does not want it to become a political talking point.

An audio clip of Brian Jopek is here. His comments are about 10 minutes into the clip.

But a month later, Ryan's father Brian -- who is no longer married to Tracy -- told Wisconsin Public Radio that his ex-wife had misgivings about Obama wearing the bracelet and mentioning their son on the campaign trail. It seems as though just as Tracy Jopek supports Obama and wants to end the war, Brian Jopek has a different take on what should happen in Iraq and may be more inclined to support McCain.

After pointing out that he and Tracy are not married anymore, Brian says that "from what I understood from email exchanges with Tracy….she wanted to put a name, she wanted Sen. Obama to know Ryan's name...She wasn't looking to turn it into a big media event...She just wanted it to be something between Barack Obama and herself."

Bryan Jopek went on to say that "because of some of the negative feedback she’s gotten on the Internet, you know Internet blogs, you know people accusing her of… or accusing Obama of trying to get votes doing it… and that sort of thing, she has turned down any subsequent interviews with the media because she just didn’t, she just didn't want it to get turned into something that it wasn’t. She had told me that in an email that she had asked, actually asked Mr. Obama to not wear the bracelet anymore at any of his public appearances."

Conservatives are now criticizing Obama for exploiting a fallen soldier whose mother has asked him to stop wearing the bracelet or mentioning her son's name. I'm not sure what the reality is behind this story -- I have a call into the Obama campaign and Tracy Jopek to find out more about this story, and will let you know what they say.

FactCheck.Org: Both Obama and McCain Misstated Facts in Debate

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama often contradicted each other last night, and each volunteered some factual misstatements as well. FactCheck.org spent the night evaluating the statements. The site concluded:

Obama said McCain adviser Henry Kissinger backs talks with Iran “without preconditions,” but McCain disputed that. In fact, Kissinger did recently call for “high level” talks with Iran starting at the secretary of state level and said, “I do not believe that we can make conditions.” After the debate the McCain campaign issued a statement quoting Kissinger as saying he didn’t favor presidential talks with Iran.

Obama denied voting for a bill that called for increased taxes on “people” making as little as $42,000 a year, as McCain accused him of doing. McCain was right, though only for single taxpayers. A married couple would have had to make $83,000 to be affected by the vote, and anyway no such increase is in Obama’s tax plan.

McCain and Obama contradicted each other on what Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said about troop withdrawals. Mullen said a time line for withdrawal could be “very dangerous” but was not talking specifically about “Obama’s plan,” as McCain maintained.

McCain tripped up on one of his signature issues – special appropriation “earmarks.” He said they had “tripled in the last five years,” when in fact they have decreased sharply.

Obama claimed Iraq “has” a $79 billion surplus. It once was projected to be as high as that. It’s now down to less than $60 billion.

McCain repeated his overstated claim that the U.S. pays $700 billion a year for oil to hostile nations. Imports are running at about $536 billion this year, and a third of it comes from Canada, Mexico and the U.K.

Obama said 95 percent of “the American people” would see a tax cut under his proposal. The actual figure is 81 percent of households.

Obama mischaracterized an aspect of McCain’s health care plan, saying “employers” would be taxed on the value of health benefits provided to workers. Employers wouldn’t, but the workers would. McCain also would grant workers up to a $5,000 tax credit per family to cover health insurance.

McCain misrepresented Obama's plan by claiming he'd be "handing the health care system over to the federal government." Obama would expand some government programs but would allow people to keep their current plans or chose from private ones, as well.

McCain claimed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had drafted a letter of resignation from the Army to be sent in case the 1944 D-Day landing at Normandy turned out to be a failure. Ike prepared a letter taking responsibility, but he didn’t mention resigning.

FactCheck.org has more details on each misstep.

Obama Couldn't Recall Name on His Bracelet in Debate

One interesting snippet from the debate last night was Sen. Barack Obama's "I've a bracelet too!" moment. This was widely praised by Democrats after the debate as showing that he cared for the troops in Iraq.

The problem was that Obama really stumbled on remembering the soldier's name. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but his stumbling was about the same as Gov. Sarah Palin's reaction to Charlie Gibson's question on the Bush Doctrine, which liberals loudly pronounced as her greatest mistake in that interview.



In case he has to remember who it is, it's Sgt. Ryan David Jopek, 20, who was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb on Aug. 2, 2006.

Early Poll Indicates Obama Won Debate

Most Democrats say Sen. Barack Obama held his ground on the foreign policy portion of the debate and scored well on the economy. Republicans say Sen. John McCain exhibited superior knowledge on foreign affairs and look more presidential.

But what did independents and undecided voters say?

CBS News and Knowledge Networks conducted a poll of about 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-four percent thought John McCain won. Thirty-seven percent saw it as a draw. Forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama got better tonight. Thirty-two 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-two percent think McCain would. Forty-eight percent of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. Fifty-six percent think McCain would.

An online MSNBC poll has Obama up 52 percent to 34 percent at 1 a.m. Eastern Saturday. That poll is unscientific and would have a larger percentages of Democrats participating because of the demographics of the network's viewership. But there were more than 350,000 voters. About 250,000 votes have been cast on Drudge, and McCain has a 67 percent to 31 percent edge there.

Most cable network pundits saw the debate through their political prisms. David Gergen on CNN saw it as a tie, but that was good for Obama as he felt McCain needed to win after the rough week he had. "John McCain needed a clear victory tonight," he said. "I think a tie was not in his interest. He is behind. And this is his best subject night ... I think he needed a clear victory tonight and that eluded him."

The McCain campaign was quick to release an ad showing Obama agreeing with McCain on a number of issues during the debate: