BROOKE: From WNYC in New York this is On the Media, I’m Brooke Gladstone.

BOB: And I’m Bob Garfield. The first Democratic primary debate was hosted by CNN and Facebook this week and by now you’ve no doubt heard that it was a total drubbing.

• Hillary Clinton dominated. 

• Hillary Clinton was really tough last night, dominating on that debate stage. 

• Hillary Clinton hit a home run. 

• “Basically, tonight, Hillary Clinton was Beyonce. She was flawless. I mean, Hillary Clinton did an extraordinary job.” 

BOB: That’s right. The punditocracy has spoken. Hillary, besieged by the GOP and maybe the FBI on her squirrely email practices,  showed up with a can of whoop-ass and toppled her opponents like so many wobbly duck pins.  

• She knew how to bring it. I thought she was kind of in control and in command pretty much throughout.

BOB: The problem is, others with an interest in the matter  did not see it that way. One of many to object to the Hillary Triumph narrative was Sean Spicer, communications director for the Republican National Committee.

Sean Spicer, RNC Communications Director on FOX: “focus group after focus group and social media stat after social media stat show that Bernie Sanders was the clear winner.” 

BOB: The RNC, of course, would love its eventual nominee to face not Clinton in the general election but, instead, say, a geriatric Jewish socialist from Vermont.

SANDERS: First we’re gonna explain what Democratic Socialism is. And what Democratic Socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong…

BOB: But the same sentiments have been bandied all over the internet by the Republicans’ ideological opposites: Sanders supporters, who not only think Bernie  stole the show, but think CNN and the rest of the media are suppressing the debate’s true outcome to serve their own corrupt interests.

It’s idiotic  -- media lockstep is a sign of laziness; not corporate corruption. But news organizations that sponsored focus groups and online polls deserved whatever backlash they got. Especially CNN, which aired the debate and made its focus group a central part of its coverage.  

Don Lemon: “We asked people to vote, to live vote during the debate. [...] Who is winning the debate overall? There we go. 75%. That is by a huge margin that they think Sanders is winning the debate.

CNN: How many of you, again, raise your hands, think that Bernie Sanders won this debate? Most of you. OK.” 

BOB: Of course, as CNN well knows, those raised hands do not constitute data. They do not project actual voting. Focus groups yield an insight here and there, but have  zero statistical relevance. If CNN had filled those dial-group seats with the next 20 people in line, 75% of those volunteers might have been cheering on Hillary.  The next 20 might have coalesced in support of Lincoln Chafee.

CHAFEE: Glass Steagall was my very first vote. I had just arrived, my dad had died in office, I was appointed to the office… I just arrived at Senate. I think we get some takeovers.

BOB: OK, maybe not that.  The point is, unscientific polls are literally meaningless.   And social-media tallies tell us little more.  Twitter traffic and Google searches -- for instance tilted heavily toward Bernie Sanders Tuesday, but why?  Because he “won” the debate, or because he was a face new to millions? So be careful to leap to conclusions. And certainly judge nothing -- nothing-- based on the obligatory post-debate spin-room. where preordained answers to stupid questions indicate nothing but cable-news’s reliance on  fake expertise and fake drama.

Here’s Martin O’Malley’s campaign Manager, Dave Hamrick:

HAMRICK: Clearly Gov O’Malley delivered tonight. Expectations were high. He needed to come in and give a great performance and clearly he did that.  He sounded presidential, he looked presidential….

BOB: Picking the winner is not only a fool’s errand, it’s the wrong question. A debate isn’t an election. There isn’t necessarily a single winner or loser. In this case, there were probably four winners: Hillary, for being poised, quick, informed and presidential. Sanders, for exciting his followers and vastly broadening his profile.  Martin O’Malley, for being handsome, articulate, more experienced than we might have thought, and handsome, paving the way for who knows what.  And maybe the Democratic Party as a whole, just for displaying grown-ups debating issues.

Lincoln Chafee, however, did lose. Seriously. That poor man totally lost.