The media is desperate for equality. Every time McCain is dinged for something, they make up a problem of Obama's. So, in a situation in which Obama clearly won, they desperately try to find a way to say "McCain was just as good."

News to the press: Obama won, and McCain lost, and it wasn't close.

MSNBC must have given david gregory marching orders to try to spin the debate as close or in mccain's favor to keep the faux suspense going. it's quite silly; anyone with eyes and ears recognized that last night's debate wasn't even close -- even fox viewers got it evidently.

Grumpy clearly demonstrated his desperation last night, always having to get in the last word; even champing at the bit to impede Obama's closing remarks---but the thing that killed his last chance at turning this thing around was the baseless lie that, once Obama declared it not to be true, McCain quipped back "the facts speak for themselves."

Mr. McCain will now discover for himself that the facts do, indeed, speak for themselves---and promoting baseless lies---one atop the next like a small child stacking a set of wooden blocks---as the truth, once they have been resoundingly exposed as baseless lies to the entire world, speaks for itself---both now, and on Election Day, when he will be sent home as the defeated, mange-infested, whelpish, cave-troll-esque Gollum figure into which he has both so voluntarily and so dishonorably transmogrified himself.

The CNN people and MS-NBC (with a few exceptions) plotted out their post-debate narrative before the debate. They suck.

The difference between the media reaction and the voter reaction is simple, and you should remember this in years to come.

MEDIA ANALAYSTS treat debates like sporting events (think boxing), and score each round. Which is exactly how debating is scored in college, where it's....a sport! The emphasis here is on the clash between the two debaters, regardless of the meaning of the subject matter or the context of the times. Which is how somebody like John King on CNN can make a total ass of himself, insisting that his 'scorecard' was right while the snap poll of voters was wrong.

VOTERS are looking at debates not as a sport but as a hiring decision. It's like they have this crazy idea that the winner won't simply get a championship belt and show up on a Wheaties box, but that the winner may somehow affect their lives in the future. So they watch the debate and they think crazy non-media thoughts, like, "Do I want this person in control of my life, my country, my earning power, my environment, my body?" This is what media types like John King think of as stupid. Which is why voters think John King is a moron.

The media needs ratings, website hits and circulation. They need to create the illusion of a horserace for their own success. People realize this, and no one is really buying it.

Last night was John McCain's Cain Mutiny moment. I expected to hear him beging to ramble on about strawberries. Obama/Biden, we're in good hands. McCain/Palin, disaster. that's what people see.

Its hard to listen to some of the cnn polls simply because its slanted. Pretty much all the polls are slanted in one direction or another based on what company is publishing them. Heres a fair review of the debate.

The Matter at Hand: The final debate is over

a whopping 80% of debate watchers polled said McCain spent more time attacking his opponent

Interesting. And yet I hope to hear Chris Matthews say this tonight:

Eleven. That's our big number tonight. Eleven. That's how many minutes it took McCain to mention William Ayers after Bob Schieffer asked him to confront his opponent with the things he has been using in ads. Eleven. Unbelievable! It sounded like he was just trying to get it in under the buzzer before Bob switched to another topic.

Obama's support from actual voters seemed to mess up the media's preferred narrative.

Objectvie evidence may contradict the media narrative, but the MSM won't let a little thing like that make them drop it.

I love the instant polling and focus groups. They really under cut the power of the media and lobbyists to shape the post debate, debate. Right after the debate my wife and I watched Pat Buchanan declare McCain the winner. My wife looked at me and asked what debate he had been watching. The fact that within a few minutes all the focus groups and polls voted for Obama cut the multimillionaire professional pundits off at the knees. They also vindicated my wife and me.

Possible typo: Frank Luntz's polling group sided with McCain -- or Obama?

As Kos, for one, has been emphasizing, these instant polls have really interfered with the media's Republican bias. And it's silly of them to imagine they can be objective about who won, when we all know that it depends on where you started. With most of them obviously Republican, they are going to see McCain as winning. That's what polls of Republicans show. Why should they assume that they're somehow imbued with "special" powers of objectivity different from the general public? Of course, the media giants who hired them were never looking for objectivity --- it's no accident they took Aaron Brown off of the air and gave that blowhard Wolf whats-his-name more air time when they did. We've just been fortunate that MSNBC decided to follow the money, instead, to lift up its status as a news channel with left-leaning political shows.

I wonder if we had had this instant polling after the Gore-Bush debates if the debacles of the last 8 years would have been a mirage? With an election so close, how much did media pundits influence the vote with their emphasis on Gore's sighing over the content of his words? As liberal blogs have already been pointing out, McCain got away with an enormous amount of eye-rolling, etc., without being called out by most pundits.

I was just over at google's news, and apparently the newspaper pundits feel no need to take into consideration the instant polling. Most of them had headlines featuring Joe the Plumber, or neutral headlines about them scrapping, but if they pronounced someone the winner, it was far more likely to be McCain than Obama....

It's weird, the bbc radio, NPR, and CBS all put in in McCain's column.

What were they watching?

Re: media narrative, there was a perfect example on CNN's debrief. When AC asked Gergen for feedback on their just announced snap polling landslide, you could actually see Gergen's brain headed into near-aneurysm territory as his cognitive dissonance machine exploded. After what seemed like an eternity, he came back with some weak tea blabber on the party representation numbers being off in the sample.

Not to make this a "class" issue, but many of those pundits commenting make far more and live far better (at leaast in terms of material comforts)than we ever will, and sometimes I think they lose touch with how policies and events affect the average person, especially since demographics across the country are increasingly changing. In some ways they remind me of 1980's era "Sovietologists," who made their living rationalizing away the behavior of the Soviet Union, missing the evident fractures that would ultimately lead to its demise. Many of those same pundits were cheerleaders for Bush during his first administration, so how astute can they really be.

I think The Phantom nailed it; the media treats this as something analogous to a sporting contest, which is why the pundits kept insisting that McCain "won it on points." The voters, however, are thinking: do I want Snarky McBlinky deciding my destiny for the next 4 (or 8) years?

The media also gravitates toward drama, and McCain's snarkiness fed that desire for drama. Obama's Zen-like coolness just wasn't dramatic enough for them. Once again, they missed the point that voters don't want four years of grouchy, eye-rolling sarcasm.

For me, the strongest sign that Obama won is that the wingnut freaks at RedState thought McCain stomped Obama into the ground. And if they thought McCain raised the proper attacks with the right amount of venom, then he must have sounded like a freak. Oddly, they all seemed to be of the opinion that the pundits were supporting Obama. I guess it's because they weren't all in agreement that McCain stomped Obama.

For anyone interested, I wrote more about them here:
RedState Picks Obama

The media is desperate for equality.

The media wants high expected ratings for the "dramatic" election night coverage, because the media wants to sell advertising (and the media wants high actual ratings, because they want this to be reliable earner every election cycle).

If no one turns on the set except to confirm the margin of victory for a candidate everyone expects to win handily, the media loses. The media may have a shared interest with other wealthy interests in a Republican victory, but they also have an acute particular interest in a race that is perceived as close, exciting, and full of the potential for surprise and drama.

Of course Pat Buchanan was going to give it to McCain, Ron Byers. Some of these others, though...

mr. shortstop and I were flipping through the channels, laughing hysterically at all the earnest-faced tools declaring McCain the champ. We knew what the snap polls were going to say. And they did.

My sense is that most people have decided who they support and the debate only confirmed the direction they were already leaning. Overall, this is good news for Obama because it's clear to me which direction most of the country is leaning.

As far as "winning the debate", if I had to call it like a boxing match (i.e. both candidates start at 0 going into the debate), I think it probably was a draw. But I think all Obama was playing for was a draw, so don’t think that is a criticism of his performance. If anything, this reinforces what I have thought throughout the campaign, Obama thinks strategically and executes well.

cmdicely--I find myself wondering if the networks, while hoping for a close race for better ratings, are making incorrect assumptions.

I read recently that the ratings for Academy Awards ceremonies aren't necessarily higher for close or unclear results; instead the highest ratings in recent years were in 1997 and 2003, both years where the ceremony was more of a coronation for an expected winner than anything else. It's possible the same result may occur here. For one thing, the ratings among African-Americans should be through the roof, and I know I'll be watching, as will many liberals. Much like the rest of this year, the networks may be surprised when the ratings come in...