“None of the Above,” the Republican candidate rising with a bullet on the Republican Primary polls, will face a Democrat about whom Democratic voters are pretty darned comfortable, at least according to the dial testing done by messagejury.com. Here’s the results from last night’s Democratic Debate, emailed to me by the man who does the dial testing.

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?”

Candidate/Pre-debate/Post-debate/Change
Biden 3.6 5.2 +1.6
Clinton 6.7 7.4 +0.7
Dodd 4.8 5.5 +0.7
Edwards 7.7 7.8 +0.1
Gravel 2.1 1.1 -1.0
Kucinich 2.3 3.3 +1.0
Obama 7.0 7.8 +0.8
Richardson 6.3 6.7 +0.4

It is certainly important to note that, like all measures of opinion, there are sure to be flaws here. There were only twelve subjects doing the dial testing, for instance, and they were confirmed Democrats — this says nothing as to how all Americans feel about the candidates. I’m pleased to note that the top three Democratic candidates all increased their comfort ratings, and that those ratings are pretty high. Edwards and Obama show at 7.8, and Hillary Clinton comes in at 7.4.

The dial testing goes on throughout the debate, with the subjects using a dial to register how well they like what they are watching at the time. Messagejury.com has some interesting information about how the subjects reacted to Richardson’s call for a quick pullout from Iraq versus Joe Biden’s call for a more deliberate approach. Seems the subjects responded well to Richardson during the debate, but in the session afterwards they warmed up to Biden’s approach. As the messagejury analysis puts it, Democrats are for a fast pullout in their hearts, but, after thinking about it, they are likely to support a more deliberate approach, though they still support a pullout from Iraq.

Oh, messagejury.com seems to think John Edwards won the debate.