David Plouffe (rhymes with “bluff”), campaign manager for Barack Obama, sent an email to Obama supporters this evening claiming victory in last night’s debate and asking for further donations from all and sundry.

Interestingly enough, the email cited a broad CBS poll and a supposedly narrower and more accurate CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll as evidence of Obama’s “breakthrough” performance that “show[ed] that Barack is offering the change we need.”

In his email, Plouffe said:

After his erratic and reckless response to the economic crisis [Ed.- What?], McCain needed a game-changer last night to restore his campaign. He didn’t even come close.

In a CBS News poll, uncommitted voters see Barack as the debate winner. When it comes to the economy, 66% say Barack would make the right decisions versus 42% for McCain.

The CNN poll results are also clear:

Who did the best job tonight?
Barack: 51
McCain: 38

Who would better handle Iraq?
Barack: 52
McCain: 47

Who would better handle the economy?
Barack: 58
McCain: 37

These are not the kind of reviews John McCain needed, but they show that Barack is offering the change we need.

Barack broke through last night with voters who were watching — but we need to get the word out to the millions who didn’t tune in.

Those numbers look very good for the Obama campaign and very poor for John McCain — that is, until you look at (a) the fact that the numbers Plouffe claims from the CBS poll (66% for Obama, 42% for McCain) actually add up to 108%, and (b) the actual CNN report on its own poll, which shows that the entire statement above from Barack Obama’s campaign manager is pretty much one big lie.

From the CNN report on its own poll:

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey is not a measurement of the views of all Americans, since only people who watched the debate were questioned and the audience included more Democrats than Republicans. …

Poll interviews were conducted with 524 adult Americans who watched the debate and were conducted by telephone on September 26. All interviews were done after the end of the debate. The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

The results may be favoring Obama simply because more Democrats than Republicans tuned in to the debate. Of the debate-watchers questioned in this poll, 41 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 27 percent as Republicans and 30 percent as independents.

The part about “uncommitted voters”? Lie.

The claim that the numbers themselves show Obama blowing McCain out of the water in the debate? Lie.

This poll, which was weighted 41% to 27% in favor of Democrat respondents, as proof of much of anything? Pretty darn near a lie, especially when cast as being a balance, reliable poll of “undecideds” in this election.

Trying to make claims like “Obama is trusted over McCain on Iraq by a five-point margin after the debate,” for example, when the polling sample included 14 percent more Democrats than Republicans, is beyond simply fudging the truth a little bit.

Plouffe’s email was, top to bottom, typically and shamelessly dishonest, and he should come clean about that fact to all of the people he lied to by sending this note.

Note:By the way, what’s with the first-name-only for Obama in all these emails, and the last-name-only for Sen. McCain? I for one find it just a bit creepy…