The Day After the Last Debate

Undecideds Laughing At, Not With, McCain, Amy Sullivan watches a focus group. Ouch.

Also at Time, Joe Klein says most media is now out of touch and still swallows the GOP rhetoric that worked in the past.

Another focus group - McCain digs himself a deeper hole.

Democracy Corps conducted dial and focus groups with 50 undecided voters in Denver, CO during and after tonight’s debate.Prior to the debate, these undecided voters had an unmistakable lean toward McCain, giving him strong personal marks (54 percent favorable, 34 percent unfavorable) while dividing evenly on Obama (42 percent favorable, 42 percent unfavorable).In fact, in the focus groups conducted after the debate, many of these voters explicitly said that they came into the evening wanting to vote for McCain.But the debate changed their outlook significantly.By a 50 to 24 percent margin, these voters said that Obama won the debate.More significantly, the debate moved their vote considerably, with 42 percent supporting Obama and 20 percent supporting McCain.This was the most decisive movement we saw toward Obama in any of the three debates.

McCain only had himself to blame for much of this movement.His attempts to attack Obama fell completely flat, failing to move the dials against Obama and often backfiring instead.McCain’s harsh tone, dismissive body language, and many interruptions turned off these voters.McCain’s personal favorability actually declined over the course of the debate, the first time we have seen that for either candidate during any of the three presidential debates.Our focus groups showed that McCain’s performance raised serious questions about his temperament and age, with many respondents shocked at how easily he seemed to lose his composure and a few dismissing him as “a grumpy old man.”

The problem for Republicans? They are so upset that character attacks are not trumping issues, They are beside themselves, its not working. My sister has noticed this at work with the blue-haired Baptists working themselves into hissy fits because they can't believe that uppity so-and-so is winning.

A Red Stater faces reality, McCain is going to lose, and is purged from the site. Much like Chris Buckley being purged from the National Review.

Some debate fact checks from the LA-Times as I am increasingly disappointed by factcheck.org bias and sloppiness.

Joe the Plumber a registered Republican, the McCain camp had told Fox News they would make him the focus of the debate before the debate began. A plant - why would a well-off Republican businessman consider voting for Obama but just wanted a few details of his tax plans? As to the question of McCain's vetting of Joe, look at Sarah Palin.

Maybe it was McCain's caffeine problem? BAGnewsNotes picture analysis.

Tags: debate McCain Joe the plumber campaign 208