Why are people always surprised with polls like the one indicating Bernie won the debate?

[DanTex]

Is it because the media was dumping on Bernie like they always do? Is it because the $2000-per-seat audience seemed to like Bloomberg the best?

Kind of weird, right? I mean, all I read about here on DU is that Bernie was angry and grumpy and rude and all that. And yet they poll debate viewers, and what do you know...





https://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-carolina-debate-watchers-most-impressed-by-sanders-and-biden-cbs-news-poll/

[BusyBeingBest]

1. Bernie's pretty good at debating, so I don't know why either.

[guillaumeb]

2. Many people seem to believe that Sanders is too far to the left,

when in fact, the GOP has pushed "the center" so far to the right, that the left is more centrist than far left.

[Fontaines D.C.]

12. THIS

People don't care about how the "inside the beltway" bobble-heads try and frame it. I'm aghast watching MSNBC, and hearing pinheads like Carville give useless opinions when he's the reason the Democratic party is so far right to begin with. The Clinton worship on this board is insane. Glass-Steagall repeal, gutting welfare, media consolidation (Telecommunications Act), Don't Ask-Don't Tell, and basically rolling over for Newt and the Contract for America. I'd love for the Democratic Party to be the party of Bobby Kennedy and FDR again, and not just get paid lip service by "moderates" parading around as Dems, when in policy they are Reagan republicans.

[guillaumeb]

13. The GOP has succeeded in framing what is considered acceptable debate.

Welcome to DU.

[Fontaines D.C.]

18. You defeat that...

by not using their frames. For me, Bernie's success is that he bypasses their nonsense. I love Liz because she is willing to go into the belly of the beast and do the same thing. As a teacher, I appreciate her ability to take complex economics and get them across to people who normally cannot compute those type of things. It's why "moderates" will get hammered in the GE. It's why the elect-ability argument is bogus, and the coattail argument is bogus as well. I really wish Liz would have punched right instead of left early on.

Thanks for the welcome!

[guillaumeb]

19. Agreed.

Noam Chomsky has written extensively on how the right frames and sets the limits of what is considered acceptable debate. And the US corporate owned and controlled media adheres closely to those limits.

There are exceptions, in print and in other media formats, but these exceptions are generally poorly funded and of limited reach.

In my view, Sanders and Warren are reaching those who correctly recognize that the majority of US workers are not doing well. That most workers correctly see that their children will do worse, and that the rich, in contrast, are the only ones doing well.

Offering a milder form of austerity for workers is not a winning slogan or strategy.

[myohmy2]

22. +1

...excellent post and spot on...

[whathehell]

31. Agreed -- The supposed "Center" has been pushed so.far Right, that "the Left"

is far more Centrist than "far Left", and has been for awhile.

[LanternWaste]

3. Who are you pretending is surprised this time around?

[WhereAmerica]

4. NO, it doesn't show Bernie won the debate

And you need to careful when you characterize a poll.

FIRST of all, look in the lower right hand: "MOE 3.2 pts." That means the resolution of this "who impressed you" poll question could be off by a window of 6.4 points (either 3.2 up or 3.2 down)

SO, that means Sanders, Biden and Warren are all within that 6.4 % window, and any one of those three could have polled the "winner."

SAME thing for question of "Made Best Case," except that only Sanders and Biden are within that 6.4% window.

[DanTex]

5. LOL.

[David__77]

9. "but MOE!"

...

[Hassin Bin Sober]

15. But but...

[David__77]

17. I did think of that MOE.

The thing is that that Moe would not tolerate such excuse-making.

[Hav]

27. Sorry for the responses you got

Some have a problem understanding even the most basic principles of polls.

[oasis]

30. Thanks for your intelligent contribution to this thread. Welcome to DU.

[ucrdem]

6. Mainly because he didn't.

He was on the defensive the whole time and got booed more than once. He didn't tank but he didn't shine either.

[booley]

24. considering the audience, the booing may not mean that much

To get a seat minimum cost was $1700.

That means the crowd would have been skewed to a demographic that isn't the majority of S. Carolinians.

[uponit7771]

7. Irrelevant, most of Sanders swing state numbers vs Trump are lack luster at best

[Cal Carpenter]

8. I don't know, but to be honest

as a Sanders supporter, I'm super critical of his debates (ask my poor hubby about how I yell "Don't fall into the trap Bernie!!!1! or babble what I think he should say, or some key point that he is missing in an answer, and yell "SAY IT! SAY IT BERNIE!" and then I groan and moan when he doesn't lol). I would have picked Warren for the first question. I'm so relieved that he is doing so well in polls like this.

For the second question, and this is in part because of the poll numbers and NV results, I would say Sanders, simply because his support is by far the most demographically diverse, and if anyone can bring out the youth vote in November (which is VITAL to beating Trump) it is Sanders.

As for the Bloomberg thing - I have been in a lot of opinionated crowds, and have heard a lot of booing, and especially in the first ten minutes or so last night, the orchestrated low booing anytime someone critiqued Bloomberg was NOT a natural crowd reaction. It was just plain weird.

[David__77]

10. I might watch it.

I can see how a campaign would get supporters coached in crowd noises and test it out with room acoustics, sound equipment like that to be used and so forth. Not to say that that happened, it just makes sense to me in the event it were to have occurred. Regardless of all that, it is not as if the audience in these things is a representative sample by any means, nor have I head the claim that it is.

[Coleman]

11. It might be

That some are turned off by his speaking style. I don't need to be lectured or yelled at, so I generally turn him off. I rely on reading summaries and so forth.

[Laelth]

14. Denial.

It's not just a river in Egypt, but it is understandable. People are shocked. They're gonna be really shocked after Super Tuesday.

Give them time. They'll come around.



-Laelth

[Quixote1818]

16. Bernie keeps his message simple in debates and aims directly at people who are struggling

So those of us who are doing pretty good financially often have no idea how well he is resonating with folks who have student debt, no HC, expensive prescription drugs etc. He is a master of messaging.

[Dragonfli]

21. That I think is the essence of the perceptual divide

As an individual that struggled in deep poverty trying to grow up. Then having to work demonstrably harder while irrefutably showing greater talent than those in competition whose external advantages given by class and connections allowed them to START on third, just to earn a place at the table (a table whose fruit went mostly to non working owners); I feel less empathy for arguments extolling the virtues of corporate benevolence or the philanthropy of an Oligarch bragging about how many Democratic congressmen who's seats he claims to have bought for them (as a defense apparently of all the Republican Senators whose seats he bought for them).

For years poor working people (which is most of them by the way, as they carry debt but very little else in their portfolios) have been waiting for the party to get back to the days when the majority was important, not just suburbanites and corporate 'persons'. We have been waiting for a return to FDR. Waiting for a time when we could vote for someone that cares about the silent, working, impoverished, and desperate people largely ignored by Washington. He is offering that.

There is an overabundance of "comfortable" people here, and I am glad that some people are doing well, but there is a huge disconnect which I have observed and tried to explain some time ago: https://www.democraticunderground.com/12841070

[maximusveritas]

20. They over-sampled "Very liberal" voters by a large margin

29% of respondents were "very liberal" compared to 28% moderates.
While the primary electorate has shifted more left in recent years, our party hasn't changed that much from 2008 when over half of the primary voters said they were moderate and only 17% said they were very liberal.

[k2qb3]

23. There's a difference between having a good debate...

And having a debate that leaves you in a good position.

Bernie had a bad debate, everyone was hitting the frontrunner, and he didn't win as many exchanges, or have as good optics, as other candidates did.

Bernie also had a good debate, because everyone was hitting the frontrunner and nothing really landed or changed much.

Pete would have had a fantastic debate last night if he'd been the frontrunner, nobody touched him and he stayed cool and witty as he usually does, but he had a terrible debate for a guy polling 4% in the next contest, he actually looked bad interjecting himself into exchanges between candidates who were relevant.

Biden had a good debate, only got confused a couple times, nobody even seemed to notice when he claimed half the country has died recently, and he's in a great spot going into SC on Sat.

Bloomberg had a bad debate, really awful, but it was slightly better than the last one so that's good for him.

It's all about context.

[LenaW]

25. I didn't watch the debates, I read the transcripts.

From that, I am obviously missing some mannerisms that some folks here find objectionable. But reading the transcripts, I am surprised that Biden polled as well as he did, because his words read like Trump - not policywise, but in a word scramble way - like he's not capable of forming a coherent thought.

"Thirdly, I go after those people who are involved in gentrification, because what’s happening is we’re moving people out of their neighborhoods in ways that in fact make no sense. They’re being bought out, if anything. You can not find a place to live. And thirdly, I make sure that with regard to housing, we allow people… Look, right now, if you live in a black neighborhood and you have the same exact house as the guy across the street in a white neighborhood has, your house is valued significantly less than the white. The same exact house. We’ve got to deal with the institutional racism-"

I can't tell at all from that what he's proposing to do. Does he have a plan? Or he's just saying that fixing up poor neighborhoods is bad because it makes them more expensive, and also houses in poor neighborhoods should be more expensive?

[chillfactor]

26. probably because he didn't! n/t

[CatMor]

29. I agree with you .. He didn't win.

[stopdiggin]

32. yeah. because they watched the debate? (nt)

[appalachiablue]

28. Heightened attention to the threat of climate change, esp.

in the last year is reflected prominently in the plans of Bernie and Elizabeth and it shows.

[Walleye]

33. I'd kind of like to see him speak one time with his hands behind his back.