Sometimes dial test results can be ambiguous, but today there was no question: Our “message jury” started off in favor of Romney, and the debate did nothing to soften their comfort level with him. In these two clips below, he showed two sides of his appeal. The first clip, featuring one of the highest scoring parts of the debate, demonstrated his direct appeal to three core GOP constituencies:

And this other clip showed he can deliver a partisan zinger (although one of our participants noted Romney had it at the ready):

We know Huckabee’s messaging is effective, but this dial test stood out. Today, Iowans gave Mike Huckabee the highest score we’ve seen to date in any dial test: 98 out of 100. It literally climbs off our chart, which tops out at 90 visually. What was the powerful message that garnered such a response? Watch:

“Let’s get it done”: It’s where the voters are viscerally these days.

If you want evidence that conservatives are backing away from the President, take a close look at Sam Brownback talking about Dick Cheney, and the see-saw effect at the beginning of this clip:

Interestingly, when Romney said the following, the dial scored up at an enthusiastic 80: “It’s been very popular lately for people across the country to be critical of the President and the Vice President. And I know they make mistakes. But they have kept us safe these last six years. Let’s not forget that.”

Fascinating contrast between hope and reality: Those candidates who speak aspirationally about a better tax system score higher on the dial test than those who pick apart its flaws. (You may recall we saw a similar phenomenon in the last Democratic debate with respect to how fast we could withdraw troops from Iraq. Richardson scored higher talking about getting out within six months than Biden scored pointing out the unrealistic problems posed by that course of action).

Here’s Huckabee and Tancredo scoring well lauding the Fair Tax. Well, it’s not merely the Fair Tax they laud per se, but the benefits derived from doing so:

(MEMO TO OTHER CANDIDATES: TAKE NOTE OF WHAT YOU JUST WATCHED. LEARN FROM MARKETING 101 AND STOP SELLING THE FEATURES. SELL BENEFITS. FRAME IN VALUES TERMS. QUIT OVERWHELMING VOTERS WITH STATS.)

Now, here’s Romney and Giuliani picking apart the Fair Tax–and compare against Huckabee and Tancredo:

Finally, McCain gives a sliver of his stump speech on taxes, and in avoiding the whole Fair Tax issue still manages to score well:

In Harry Truman-esque fashion, Tom Tancredo gave a kick in the slacks to the folks Truman often maligned as the “Striped Pants Boys” in the State Department. Tancredo took credit for provoking the Foggy Bottom’s ire by or suggesting that we should threaten to bomb Mecca and Medina to deter an attack by Islamic terrorists. But Tancredo’s statement was not well-received by our Iowa Republicans:

When Tommy Thompson followed up by saying that “bombing religious artifacts and religious holy sites would do nothing but unify one billion Muslims against us; it makes no sense,” he scored up at 80.

It’s standard fare for Democrats to score well on healthcare by bashing insurance and drug companies. But what about Republicans? Well, it turns out they do well by bashing–no surprise–big government. And again, no surprise, it’s Mike Huckabee whose messaging scored highest on this topic in the dial test. Shrewdly, he suggests that “every American get the same kind of healthcare that Congress has, or make Congress have the same kind of healthcare that every American has.” He follows up with a plea for prevention that pushes 90 on the dial test:

Tommy Thompson also pushed for prevention, and saw his numbers rise to 85–probably his highest score ever in our dial tests. Yes, he overwhelms the viewer with way too many numbers. But when he gets to the prevention topic, he’s succeeding:

Romney’s success in Massachusetts similarly scored well, but our Message Jury wanted to know more about how he achieved it:

Giuliani, who was so effective in the previous GOP debate talking about healthcare, did not hit a home run this time. And worse, he made a rookie mistake by confusing Medicare and Medicaid. Memo to Rudy: The program is called “Medicare Advantage,” not “Medicaid Advantage.”

Duncan Hunter scored all right with the idea of introducing the purchase of health insurance across state lines. His tying of SCHIP to socialized medicine got him only into the the 70s:

Finally on healthcare, Brownback advocated “more market forces in healthcare.” This got him to 70, but in our discussion with participants afterwards, he should have talked about the virtues of competition in healthcare that force insurance companies to keep their costs down.

JULY 23 DEMOCRATIC DEBATE: Pre- vs. Post-Debate Dial Test “Candidate Comfort Scale”: “How comfortable would you be with each candidate as your President, on a scale from zero to 10?”

(Our “Message Jury” was a cross-section of 12 Democratic likely caucus voters in Bedford, NH, who participated in a moment-to-moment dial test of the entire debate. Note that this is not a complete representative sample of N.H. Democrats.) For more information and to view dial test snippets from the debate, visit http://www.messagejury.com/.

The bi-partisan embrace of NCLB is history, if our sample is any indication. One of the highest-scoring moments of the debate occurred with Gov. Richardson advocated scrapping it completely:

When Sen. Dodd took a more measured approach, touting the virtues of accountability and making a plea for reforming the law, he received a luke-warm response. Participants told us that they were confused by his explanation of his position, and were not sure where he stood after watching this:

A plurality of our group (four of 12) thought Sen. Edwards won the debate. And we heard a word used to describe him afterwards that any campaign would want to be associated with their candidate: “genuine”. When asked, most of this group thought he was, indeed, “genuine.” These two clips, related to nuclear power and the separation of church and state, show how much Edwards was on-message in this debate: