Perceptions of political debates are notoriously subjective. After every Bush v. Kerry debate, many spinmeisters were all-too-ready to declare a “homerun” for both candidates. That's where the communications research company HDC Research is helpful. Viewers can see people’s reactions as they happened throughout the debate with the website MediaCurves.com. The company's latest survey had 454 people watch Tuesday's Democratic debate and rate whether they agreed or disagreed with Clinton and Obama. You can watch the video: here.

The rift between independent and partisan men was one of the most striking aspects of the survey. When Obama spoke, the male independents agreed with what they saw more than any other group, while male Democrats agreed least. When Clinton spoke, the results crossed: Male independents agreed the least of any group, while male Democrats agreed the most.

The one thing that everyone seemed to agree on was that Clinton’s claims of media bias were not exactly agreeable.

—Bennett Gordon

Would Sen. John McCain be a good environmental president? Don’t bet the planet on it. Joseph Romm at Salon writes that although the Republican nominee-to-be is the only GOP candidate who believes in the science of global warming and who has proposed legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, his green credentials are shaky at best.

“While McCain may understand the scale of the climate problem, he does not appear to understand the scale of the solution,” writes Romm. Unless a President McCain appointed judges and agency heads who would not gut efforts to address climate change—something he’d be unlikely to do—he wouldn’t make much headway. Romm also points out that McCain has backed huge subsidies for nuclear power, yet he “remarkably” told Grist in an interview last October that wind and solar need no such help.

Over at Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington also calls out McCain on his environmental wishy-washiness in “End of a Romance: Why the Media and Independent Voters Need to Break Up With John McCain”:

“The old John McCain talked about trying to do something about global warming and encourage renewable energy. The new John McCain didn’t show up for a vote last week on a bill that included tax incentives for clean energy, even though he was in D.C. And then his staff misled environmentalists who called to protest by telling them that he had voted for it.”

McCain is still getting mileage out of the “maverick” label that no longer applies, Huffington claims. But perhaps he’s still a maverick when compared to green voters: He’s got almost nothing in common with them.

—Keith Goetzman

Image by  Geoffrey Chandler , licensed under Creative Commons.