But I'd push Nate's analysis one step further and say that the debate's subject order tilted the results even more in Obama's favor. Even the Wall Street Journal's editorial page agreed Obama dominated the economic portion -- the first part of the debate. If you believe the pundits, McCain did better as the debate went on into foreign policy topics. By that time, millions of Americans had tuned out.
Even though the debate's viewership was fairly steady for a 90 minute program, ABC/CBS/NBC ratings dropped nearly 11 percent from 9pm to 10pm. Doesn't sound like much, but with 52.4 million total viewers, that means 5.5 million fewer people were watching McCain's foreign policy recovery than saw Obama's economic domination. When you're watching analysis of future debates, remember that pundits and focus groups forced to watch every minute aren't necessarily an accurate reflection of the experience of the average American who had to shut off the TV and put the kids to bed.
StateDemocracy.org Equips You for the 2008 Elections (moore - 9/30/2008 2:04:50 AM)
Dear Citizen:
Are you ready yet for the November 4th Elections? How about your friends, family, and neighbors?
More Americans are expected to vote this year than ever before in history, so don't be left out! Be sure to ask everyone you know the following questions:
? Are you registered to vote? If you moved recently, have you updated your voter registration?
? Did you apply for an Absentee Ballot? Do you know your state may not require any reason?
? Can you find your local Polling Place? Do you know it may have changed from last time?
The answers to these questions -- and all your voting needs -- can be found at www.StateDemocracy.org -- the FREE 1-Stop citizen empowerment portal that Delivers Democracy to your Desktop! StateDemocracy is among the Internet's first (since 2001) and most encompassing civic empowerment tools.
In order to boost voter participation this year, StateDemocracy.org is offering FREE widgets for all 50 states. You can simply download and embed these widgets into your own website so your visitors can register to vote, get an absentee ballot or find their local polling place.
Lobby Congress Via StateDemocracy
StateDemocracy.org also equips you to maintain an active dialog with your state and federal lawmakers once they are elected. And RIGHT NOW is an especially opportune time to contact your U.S. Senators and House Member, as Congress takes up major legislation on such issues as offshore oil drilling, another economic stimulus package and all federal appropriations bills over the next few weeks.
As you lobby your elected officials, remember that lawmakers view your constituent input as reflective of scores of other citizens who felt similarly, but didn't have (or take) the time to share their opinions.
LobbyDelegates.com Further Empowered Grassroots Voices
Over the past 5 months, you may have visited www.LobbyDelegates.com, along with 26,000 other visitors. This latest public interest portal by the StateDemocracy Foundation remained the only online tool enabling rank-and-file Democrats to lobby all 800+ Super Delegates on which candidate to back for the party's Presidential nomination.
StateDemocracy Foundation Website Users Unite!
Many of you have used our StateDemocracy.org and LobbyDelegates.com tools in recent times, and have hopefully found your experience uplifting and empowering. I encourage all of you to help spread the news about StateDemocracy.org to enable more of our fellow citizens to Connect! Engage! And Empower!
Over at FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver points out a basic fallacy of pundits' debate analysis. While the pundits weighted McCain and Obama's discussion of the economy and of, say, Russia about equally, voters care vastly more about the economy right now than they do any other topic.