Why So Many Pundits Wrongly Scored the Debate 'Even'

It often happens that the pundit "scoring" of a presidential debate ends up quite at odds from the polls of viewers that soon follow.

We've seen it again with last night's debate, which most pundits (on TV and in print) scored very or fairly even, with perhaps some recognition that Obama made some small gains because he pretty much held his own on McCain's turf. Of course, as we now know, virtually every poll taken by the networks and outside sources gave Obama an edge -- and not a small one. He easily swept surveys of undecideds, even carried a Fox focus group. At least in the polls, it was no contest.

We'll see if and how it affects the head-to-head matchup surveys in days ahead but for now we have to ask: Why did so many mainstream pundits blow it?

Of course, there is always the striving for "balance," the effects of pre-spinning, and in some cases their favoring of McCain from the outset. And, to be frank, McCain gave a pretty good account of himself. But many pundits threw out the window what they, and others, had said beforehand, about Obama needing to appear presidential and seem expert on international matters. When he did just that in the debate, they suddenly forgot the importance they had placed on it beforehand.

But here's the key to the viewer/pundit disparity. It took awhile for McCain to build up to it, but then he hammered it home near the end: Obama, he charged, lacked the "knowledge and experience" to be president.

Pundits highlighted that and said it was the key to McCain gaining at least a tie. But I didn't hear a single person on TV point out: McCain just picked Palin for vice president! How, then, could he make such a charge against Obama?

My feeling is that the Couric interview might have done for McCain what the first Nixon-Kennedy debate did for Nixon in 1960 -- a true watershed moment. The American voters finally "got it" about Palin and so McCain's "best moment" against Obama either fell flat with many of them, or proved laughable. This was made all the more stark with Palin AWOL during the post-debate analysis -- and Joe Biden all over the place.

But the pundits barely recognized this -- and that's why they scored the debate fairly even even as viewers seem to have rated it a landslide for Obama.

Subject for a later column: The many pundits who now have egg on their faces for their early hailing of Palin and/or predictions of how strongly she would help the ticket.

Read more reactions to the first presidential debate from HuffPost bloggers, including Nora Ephron, Bob Shrum, Madeleine Albright, Paul Reiser, Arianna Huffington, Sean Penn, Sheryl Crow, and more.

For more of my debate coverage: http://www.eandppub.com
*
Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher and author of the new book on Iraq and the media, "So Wrong for So Long."

Comments

[bigtimepatriot]

I've noticed a similar "pundit blindside" when it comes to the failed bailout vote. Many pundits seem worried about the fact that the Democrats held the votes without enough votes to win. This is a stupid point on so many levels.

First of all, most Americans see that the vote failed due to Republicans not voting for it. They don't care whether Democrats PREDICTED that outcome, the PREDICTION is not the big point out in America, the ACTUAL VOTING that the Republicans did to kill the bail out is a bigger deal. But still I see articles about "how can the House leadership not have known the vote was going to fail??".

Secondly, this whole idea that you only have votes that you know the results of is just a recent construct. This is merely an outgrowth of the Reid\Pelosi chickenshit strategy whereby Republicans have not been forced to filibuster ANYTHING with real value to voters. For Reid and Pelosi, just the idle threat of a Republican filibuster is now somekind of accepted deterence to the will of the majority of Americans.

But most Americans don't really internalize this new "inside baseball" "bizarro world" idea that votes are no longer held until the answer is known, they are still going by the "real world" idea that you hold votes even IF you don't know the results. These articles about why Democratic leadership didn't predict the vote correctly is just a weird pundit world sidetrack to the real issues.

[DerNonPartiSam]

Obama could have stuttered and stumbled through the debate and posters here would have still said he won.

Both McCain and Obama did okay. I didn't see a clear winner. Neither cares about anything but winning the election.

If they really cared about the taxpayers, they'd both be in Washington trying to negotiate a deal.

Today, they both called for raising the FDIC depositer insurane from $100,000 to $250,000. How silly is that. It seems today's politicians believe we can print all the money we need. Why not just print enough money to pay off every mortgage in the U.S? Why not just give every taxpayer a million dollars?

I'm sick of all these people -- democrats and republicans. I don't see a difference between the two. All either party cares about is blaming the other for every problem in America and getting re-elected.

We need people in congress that want to do the people's business, not their party's business.

[write2bheard]

It is interesting that McCain who says he is so good at reaching across the aisle, would not even look across the isle. Obama constantly sought common ground here while McCain just wanted to pick a fight. This speaks more clearly about the way each would govern than any pundit ever could.

[txvoodoo]

Pundits keep forgetting the OPTICS.

The strange thing is that they bring them up all the time - JFK v Nixon, JFK *looked* good, Nixon didn't. And so on - but they forget to apply it to CURRENT events.

Obama looked like a president. McCain looked like an EX-official.

[syrupcore]

People who follow politics are watching the *politics* of a debate - watching the debate as a significant but small part of the much larger, much longer story.

People who are undecided at debate time are seeing something entirely different.

[zull2]

Mainstream pundits blow it because they frequently search for certain words and patterns that they want to hear, but they don't really listen to the real context of a speech. They figure that these patterns will be so powerful with the average person that a person who wouldn't EVER understand such complex concepts as "surging" (I think a 5 year old could understand the tactic of adding more troops when playing a video game)...that these people would have no choice but to "follow their gut". The truth of the matter is that Obama didn't use the words and patterns that pundits look for, and the pundits just decided that Obama, while saying good things, didn't do enough to overcome McCain's obvious lack of composure on stage. To me, it looked like old videos of the Kennedy-Nixon debate. Obama was smooth, comfortable, and natural, while McCain's eyes were darting around and avoiding contact with his opponent. It looked like McCain was actually kind of scared and nervous. But when you follow the substance, even though I needed a few mixed drinks to keep my attention focused, Obama frequently was leading McCain into situations where McCain would be forced to lie, forced to appear partisan, or forced to call Obama "inexperienced" but essentially take the same stance on the issue anyway. If you're really paying attention, you see quickly how Obama twisted McCain right around on the topic that McCain is supposedly his strongest on.

[nickmack84]

I agree, mainstream pundits seem to assume that whichever candidate appeals to the lowest common denominator of voter intelligence wins the debate. The biggest clue as to who wins in their minds is, did the candidate get the message across to the voter? While it is important to acknowledge the message, this kind of analysis of a debate leaves open much room for a stupid candidate to score big. For example, I personally thought that McCain pounded on the statement that Obama is "naive and inexperience, naive and inexperienced, naive and inexperienced." Thus, all one has to do is repeat a statement over and over again without lending much factual and insightful support as long as the message is there. Also, everyone knows that the mainstream media is not neutral in practice. Corporate media tends to prefer closer elections and that organizational priority can trickle down into pundits' supposedly expert analysis.

[LeaderofMen]

Don't forget that MSM pundits are beholden to an audience that you and I are not beholden to: their paymasters.

MSM 'pundits' - and I HATE that word, since it does not in any way describe them - must continue to draw a paycheck and they have to be invited back to speak. If they say the wrong things they don't get invited back and they risk being FIRED.

Thus MSM pundits are not our friends but rather must walk a tightrope. We do not have to do that as voters. At least us educated ELITISTS don't.

[ItHasToGetBetter]

Obama did very well. If people listened to the substance of what was said. He had answers. He had ideas. He has a plan. All I heard from McCain is adherence to the same policies that haven't been and aren't working. McCain lost his right to talk about experience when he chose Palin as his running mate.

[care4mypeeps]

Pundits are guilty of ignoring the facts and creating new lines of litmus testing only following their rule of thumb.

We have to ask ourselves most of the time: Did they just hear what I heard?
It is frustrating sitting through some of these commentaries, and at times all of the pundits at one time or another get alI caught up in this, " I GOT ALL OF THE ANWERS AND THAT IS JUST THE WAY TI IS SYNDRONE"

We hope and pray that they just get it. Our opion really matter, and in order for them to get it, THEY MUST LISTEN.

[jacqmac]

Unfortunately-Obama DID lose 'points' for NOT coming down HARD on McCain's statement, early on, that he 'knew' he had picked a 'fellow maverick' as a running mate. I would have LOVED to see a fleeting look of skepticism cross his face. He also missed a couple other attempts-like TRYING to get McCain to talk about how the Iraq 'action' is inextricably interwoven with economic AND foreign policy. McCain didn't bite-but went further on his tangent of tax cuts and spending cuts. The one time that Obama DID have McCain close to the ropes (as in boxing, sorry, but it fits) was on the Iraq angle, once the debate got on topic. As for the economic policy portion, Obama clearly presented the points HE had already made known that HE would accept in the 'bailout'. But Obama did NOT use "I" half so much as McCain did. He was also totally respectful of McCain-looking at him when he talked to him, EVEN agreeing with certain points of McCain's! Wow! A guy who can actually tell an adversary 'You're right about that." Who'd a thunk it?

[sheaftosser]

They not only called it close to even, they are STILL calling it close to even, after the deluge of polling data clearly indicating Obama won.

MSM memes die hard, don't they?

[MoeB]

I noticed that too...their angle is that the pundits know more than the voters watching the debate...so basically, we're too stupid to know it was a TIE!

[ecksman]

my rule of thumb is "follow the money"

the networks need viewership to get more money, therefore they bring in pundits that attract a certain demographic

these pundits like to be on air and they get paid to be talking heads ... 10 out of 10 times u know what the pundit is going to say before they open their mouth. fair and balanced, yes, but truthful and newsworthy, no.

and collectively ... each network has its own agenda ... fox caters to the conservative, msnbc counters fox, and cnn wants the race to be tight so more people watch the news more often.

if this was a blow out as it should be ... i would have also stopped watching the news as often as i do. so i admit that cnn's ploy has suckered me into watching more also.

therefore, it comes down to money folks. money money money.

[care4mypeeps]

The reason the pundits get it so wrong, they cave in to opposition or the higher ups that feed them position they are suppose to debate. They have never reflected the true postions of the American people except for blue collar voters who allow themself to fit into these sterio types.

They are so rehearsed in their reporting, until you can correctly know what opinion they will render.

The Pundits do us a dis-service when they try to speak for us, when we are at total odds at what they are propigating as our true opinions.

[sociocanuck]

Also: the pundits ignored that Independents don't necessarily trend right of Center, as Republican strategists would have us believe: Independents include those who are to the left of the Democratic Party, for inatance. I think it might be far fairer to divide so-called "Independents" by where they lie relative to the two parties (left, right, or truly in the center) rather than a lump category; but that would abandon the (incorrect) simplicity of the model.

[tuttlemsm]

Spot on. Since the 80s, the right has so effectively cowed the mass media that the media feel obligated to present a false equality even when the facts clearly favor the Democrats.

"In other news today, scientists report that the attraction of smaller objects to large celestial objects like the earth is due to a force called gravity, yet other scientists deny that such a force exists, with the controversy unlikely to be settled in the near future...."

False equality.

[ThinkAgen]

Obama was offered his knock out punch, and he passed it up. Every time McCain called him nieave, was an oppertunity, because everytime he said it, he was bluffing. Not once did he offer any substance to back up his claims of nievate, and had Obama simply challanged McCain to eleborate, he would have had him trapped.

Obviously I have no evidence to back up this claim, though I will predict that if McCain attempts this tactic again, Obama will pounce.

Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.

[tuttlemsm]

"Obama was offered his knock out punch, and he passed it up. "

The passing up of the knock-out punch IS the knock-out punch.

[jeanwny]

Amen!

[care4mypeeps]

I didn't see it that way. Tact and class can still get the job done. Everyone is not a scrapper and that's OK.

Obama was excellent, he cammanded attention from the millions who watched.
He was in-sightful and well aquainted with foriegn policy.

He was Presidential in all of his responces and didn't need to roll around in the dirt.
Why are we requesting him to adopt Mc Cain Rove tactics?

He was awesome. He didn't need to knock Mc Cain out, he knocked himself out.
Mc Cain gave himself a one two punch right into the credibility.

[Nonamnesiac]

Anyone watching the debates and campaign objectively realizes that McCain's class rank of 894 out of 899 in his class at war college at Annapolis (below the bottom 1%) was and is no accident. The American people realize he's too stupid and unstable to be President -- it's just that simple. The pundits don't even understand the issues being discussed, and are declaring victory and defeat based upon inaccurate standards of measurement. The people saw that Obama made mincemeat out of McCain -- and know the pundits are lying by calling it a draw.

On top of that, stupid McCain picked the one-woman antidote to white male racism as his running mate. Most racist White Americans (primarily males, except for the South) realize that McCain's dad and grandad died at 70 and earlier, and if McCain is elected, there's a good possibility that Crazy Sarah might be President for 3 or 4 years. And as much as those non-Southern White (primarily, although not exclusively) males don't want to vote for a Black candidate, they'll vote for Obama because they're more afraid of Crazy Sarah than Obama and know that John's too stupid.

[mjc]

Charlie Rose had the best "panel" discussion of the debate immediately following and the pundits were definitely star quality. They mostly agreed that neither candidate did spectacularly and Obama having the most to prove did fine. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder sometimes and on these threads Obama is always going to be THE ONE.

[MoeB]

Hmmm...but the polling that followed wasn't conducted on people who post on Huffington. It was a random survey done on the voting public. THEY seem to think that Obama won handily.

[ruberube]

McCain states "Obama does not understand..."

However heres what I do understand about Mccain!

Mccain took the lead into the Iraq War despite the weak intelligence, despite there was plenty of intelligence that stated that Iraq did not carry WMDs!
McCain, for 26 years voted against regulation and oversight into the financail sectors of our broken nation! Such irresponsible policies have lead to the demise of our economy our nation!
McCain cant fix the problem he is the problem!