Mark Blumenthal (excerpt) noted how little we learn from an insta-poll of a Presidential speech:
- Instant response polls measure only speech-watchers. While the methodologies vary, the most important thing to remember that these surveys aim to sample only those who watch the speech and, as such, are are not intended to represent the views of all Americans. The pollsters will hopefully provide some before-and-after comparisons of the speech audience -- showing how viewers felt about health care reform before and after the speech -- but those comparisons will involve only the sample of speech viewers. Thus, no one should take any of the numbers they see tonight and make comparisons to full-sample results from previously surveys of all adults or all "likely voters."
- The audience is usually skewed toward the President's fans. Remember, not all Americans watch presidential addresses. Out of roughly 113 million television households in the U.S., between 52 and 63 million watched the debates last fall and roughly 53 million watched President Bush's address on the economic crisis last September. Those are huge audiences, but plenty of Americans still tune out.
In this case, CNN (full .pdf) notes:
18% of the respondents who participated in tonight's survey identified themselves as Republicans, 45% identified themselves as Democrats, and 37% identified themselves as Independents.
So, what he had was a real chance to address indies. And here's what was posted at pollster.com:
The first on my radar screen comes from CNN of a survey of people who watched the speech (update: full results now posted). Candy Crowley says, not surprisingly, that the sample "skews heavily Democratic, we think that the Democratic sample in this flash poll is 8 to 10 points higher than in the general population."
- 72% say yes, Obama clearly stated his health care goals, 26% say no.
- 56% had a very positive reaction, 21% somewhat positive, 21% negative
- Support for Obama's health care plans jumped 14 points among speech viewers: from 53% in favor to 67%
Democracy Corps has an overnight poll lays it out (click for larger pic):
Obama’s Speech Moves Swing Voters to Support Reform
Significantly, Obama’s speech played well across the political spectrum. Traditionally, voters from the opposite party of the president tend to score consistently low and to create huge partisan divides in these dial tests. That was not the case with Obama’s speech. With just a few exceptions, Republicans held solidly around 50 and even exceeded 70 percent favorability during parts of the president’s speech, giving particularly high scores to Obama’s remarks on not adding a penny to the deficit, creating a health care exchange, protecting Medicare, and reforming medical malpractice. While Republicans in the audience may have viewed this as a partisan speech, those outside of the room clearly did not.
Obama helped himself last night by going over the heads of the media and his brain-dead opposition (the visuals of Joe Wilson's Billy Crystal/Carol Kane's Princess Bride imitation - Liar!! - went over very badly, as did Eric Cantor's texting) directly to the Amercian people.
Good start. It'll take three days of traditional polling to put this in context, so check back on Sunday and beyond.