Rasmussen, Edwards Bounce Fade Already Begun

rasmussenreports.com ^ | July 11, 2004 | Owen

[Owen]

Kerry 48 Bush 45. The gap closes 1% from yesterday's 4% Edwards bounce.

[Ole Okie]

When Kerry gets beat in the election, will Edwards sue him for running a bad campaign?

You can take that one to the bank. The first, second, third, ....., infinity impulse of a trial lawyer is to sue, sue, sue.

[snarkytart]

Riiiiight~
The Dem pollster started conducting a poll 5 minutes after Edwards was added to the ticket.

[Brett66]

Bush's team gave Kerry and co. a black eye over his obscene fundraiser.

[dawn53]

The Dem pollster on FNS also told Wallace that the "Johns" did not agree with what was said at Radio City Music Hall the other night.

So Chris Wallace asked them why Kerry said what he said about the people there representing the voices of America.

The pollster avoided the question, said something like Kerry probably didn't hear everything that was said during the concert.

So now I guess Kerry not only has prostate cancer, he's deaf also, LOL!

[Owen]

Folks, we talk a lot about policy here and that's as it should be from a conservative vs liberal perspective. But the truth is that in a campaign tactics will trump policy 90% of the time. We have to GOTV as we never have before.

Please call the campaign and volunteer. The registration job in GOP neighborhoods is going on right now. There are GOP voters out there who are not registered. Get them registered now and then drive rental vans to pick them up on election day.

And if you live in Texas, do this for Louisiana or New Mexico. Those are close enough that your efforts will matter more than in a state already decided.

You Northeast GOP types that people sneer at here as RINOs -- it goes for you, too. Some of us have noted that only Powell and McCain, our RINOs, were the only ones standing up to defend the president when things were bad in April. There is a place for RINOs in conservatism. If we were all yes people, our platform would be insane. So if you're in the Northeast, try to drive to New Hampshire and Pennsylvania to volunteer.

[reformedliberal]

I agree. There are snippets of leaks almost weekly indicating that the internals are spooking the Kerry campaign and giving confidence to the Bush campaign..IMO, it has been this way since about mid-May.

Just look at all the tacking Kerry has done, all the gimmicks he has used, all the help he gets from the media *reporting*, for example, that the Senate report clears the administration, but headlined *Doubts Remain*.

Then look at how President Bush has taken the media head-on, Cheney has told off Leahy, Bush retorts *Cheney can be President* and Bush is firm on his support in the South and from his base.

They all know. The media knows. It is the non-political junkies who end up confused, which is the media's goal.

[Kuksool]

Then why are the NBC, Newsweek, and Rasmeesum (sp?) polls show Kerry with a slight lead?

[POA2]

"I agree. There are snippets of leaks almost weekly indicating that the internals are spooking the Kerry campaign and giving confidence to the Bush campaign..IMO, it has been this way since about mid-May."

I hope you are right here (I seriously do) but I think this could be wishful thinking on your part - that you are seeing only what you want to see -

The fact is, as an incumbent - GWB historically is not sitting well right now - for a number of reasons -

1. Polls (and polls today are different in some ways...because of 24hr news they have much more of a "push" effect).

With that said, GWB is not sitting well in the polls - the horse race version Kerry has taken leads in many key States (MI,PA, FL, NM,) while closing the difference in many GWB States (MO,NC,VA, AR, WV NH)

2. DEM 527's have killed us - and the ROVE team had no answer and were caught 100% off guard - this has killed GWB since JAN 04 - DEM 527's have outspent GWB supporting 527's by over $70 million thus far and will outspent us by over $120 million come Nov -

3. John Kerry has raised more money then any opponent in history - He will lie and lie with this money.

4. The media have never been more partisan - they are nothing but a campaign tool for John Kerry - facts mean nothing to them (other then to hide them)

5. The GWB reelection team has been inept for months - They ran the worst reelection campaign in history from Oct 2003 until May 2004 (and it hasn't got much better since May even!!).

[POA2]

I would also ad, that GWB approval rating is on the way up - and this is a very positive thing -

With that said, it seems our hope of winning has been left to "hoping" the publics perception on the economy catching up with reality by Nov.

This seems to be the Rove platform for winning - hoping the publics view catches up with reality - instead of fighting back the lies (put out by the DEm's) on the economy since last year - We sat back and said nothing for months.

Terrible decision.

[Rome2000]

Edwards was probably the worst choice Kerry could make, a lightweight liberal ambulance chaser sure to turn off as many undecided men as excite undecided women.

Vilsack or Gephardt at least are plausible inhabitants of the Oval Office, the thought of Edwards sitting behind that desk is preposterous.

Kerry blew it, the first important decison he had to make and it shows that he is not especially bright.

[Kuksool]

It seems the Bush is planning on waiting until the GOP convention to actually start its campaigning. I think that is a bad move. I was hoping that Bush would be so far ahead that he would have time in October to campaign with GOP Senate candidates in CO, AK, OK, NC, SC, FL, WA, CA, and SD. With the way the Bush team is campaigning, these GOP Senate candidates are going to be on their own.

[LS]

I agree with you that it looks like the main effort is not coming until after the convention. This is partly, I think, due to the fact that in 2000, the Bush team thought it had "softened the ground" sufficiently in mid summer, only to have the DUI thing snatch away several thousand votes (and, in all likelihood, a couple of states) in the last minutes.

I think Rove probably thinks that a) the continued improving economy will reach the "tipping point" at some point and people will put aside doubts about Bush to vote their wallets; and b) that Iraq will continue to improve and be a non-issue.

However, I caution all of you who criticize the Rove strategy (whatever it is): This man has NEVER lost an election (for his candidate) going back to Bush's 1st Texas gubernatorial run through 2002, if you count the 2002 mid-term elections. So sell Rove short is a bad mistake that Ann Richards and Al Gore and Tom Daschle all made.

[The Wizard]

Ron delivers the fag point of view

[monocle]

I think the media has a far more insidious influence than you suggest. Big media has interposed itself between politicians and the people in virtually every aspect of the political process with media's influence increasing with level of office from local to state to federal. For example, big media will decide what, if anything, will be shown from the conventions. At press conferences big media ask all the questions with each trying so score points. At the much heralded debates, the debates are generally moderated by big media anchors or reporters with a panel of big media inquistors. It is virtually impossible for the average voter to have his uncensored questions directed at politicians and answered over the airwaves. Even when the debates employed a townhall format the questions are prescreened, and in some instances, fed to the questioner by big media.

[reformedliberal]

I don't have the exact polls and their demographic weightings in front of me, but off the top of my head:

1)The polls are sauced to favor Kerry/Dems...one of those polls (I can't recall if it is one you mentioned) was *adults*, which will always swing left, but doesn't mean much as it doesn't indicate the subset of *likely* voters, which swings to our side. Ras, IIRC, has a 2pt skew to Kerry and that, I think, has been said to be the weighting for GOTV in favor of the Dems. We showed in 2002 that we can GOTV and we will this time, too.

2) Even where Kerry has gotten a tiny bump, W has also gone up, so the *bump* is 2 pts and w/in the MOE, therefore, there is no real change and the race is effectively tied acording to these polls. Many of these polls were slapped together overnight and may or may not be accurate.

3) Internals are not publicized. No campaign is going to sauce the internals. That is how they know how they are doing. I stated that from their actions and the bits of leaking that has been caught by the political columns, the Kerry internals are not wonderful and the Bush internals are good. Confident campaigns act like the Bush campaign, not like the Kerry campaign.

4) The main role of push polls, which these all are, is to take advantage of a perceived peer pressure effect: people will vote w/whomever is seen to be the winner. That, however, seems to be canceled out by the savvier electorate this time, who do not seem to be buying it.

5) All this media politicking for Kerry and all the sauced polls SHOULD have given Kerry a solid 5-8pt lead even before the Edwards pick and then another solid bounce from that. Instead, it took 2 days for minuscule bumps to appear and W did not fall and in fact came back up today. In the tracking poll by Ras, which is only good to see the trends, today, Kerry's lead fell to within the MOE.

These are illusory *leads* for Kerry. Look at the state polls, where the leads are large. If all W is losing in July,in the state polls, with nonstop Bush bashing by the media, is a few percentage points, he looks to be keeping the states he won in 2000. With increased ECVs from reapportionment due to increased census numbers, it looks ok, so far for W at around 272-279 EVs or so.

[bannie]

Pssst...don't tell the libs, but I think these polls help us. They keep us from becoming complacent and forgetting to vote.

;)

[lepton]

In the 1996 election cycle, unions (mostly in violation of Beck) spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 million in support of Democrat candidates.

[lepton]

Edwards was probably the worst choice Kerry could make, a lightweight liberal ambulance chaser

Edwards was a good choice if they use him right. Sure he largely harvests from the same group that Kerry does, but his trade is manipulation and emotional appeal. I would expect him able to win debates while being totally wrong (and possibly not even addressing the questions), and to be a consistant voice for a fairy-tale world. The majority of those that would fall into the pool of independents are quite succeptible to his emotional appeal.

As an example, how many people approved of Clinton's Health Care plan he touted during the 1992 election...the blank book?

[lepton]

With the way the Bush team is campaigning, these GOP Senate candidates are going to be on their own.

As I understand, a lot of the fundraisers he'd been doing early-on have been for Congressmen.

[lepton]

Instead, it took 2 days for minuscule bumps to appear and W did not fall and in fact came back up today.

From my recollection, typically the delay is about three days, after which it begins to recede...so the delay is not outside of normal - even if it is smaller than normal.