I noticed that too. I'm willing to put my own opinion aside as to viewer bias, though :). In any case, the post-debate polls show Gore as the winner, whether by a large margin or a larger one, so you're not the only one.
I had to laugh at the efforts of some commentators to back up their rhetoric with their pet poll results. Statistics is not the forte of political analysts, no matter how important it is to the practise of politics. (I also take issue with the likely voter vs. registered voter models, but that quibble is for another time).
The difference, I think, was that commentators expected Gore to pull out all the stops and wipe the mat with Bush (sorry, still in wrestling-induced euphoria after Daniel Igali's gold in 69kg freestyle). Bush was still standing at the end, ergo, it was a draw. Joe and Jane Public, however, have no such bias, so when they saw Gore win, they said Gore won.
Another interesting factoid: internet "polls", such that they are, showed Bush winning the debate by a landslide, 2/3 to 1/3 on nearly every question. It made me quite depressed until I saw the telephone polls come in.
Marco
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> | With sufficient thrust, <
> Marco Anglesio | pigs fly just fine. <
> mpa at the-wire.com | However, this is not <
> http://www.the-wire.com/~mpa | necessarily a good idea. <
> | --RFC 1925 <
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