Posted on 07/31/2004 8:48:48 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Matt Drudge is reporting tonight that John Kerry appears to have only a 4-point convention bounce (quoting Newsweak).
If true, a mere 4-point convention bounce is a disaster for Kerry. Just disastrous.
Let me tell you why and then I'll back it up with some hard data.
When you are running against an incumbent, you need a huge bounce to keep the race competitive. Especially since the incumbent will have the last word (by having the convention last). Bill Clinton got a 30 point bounce at his convention in 1992 and he needed almost all of it to beat the incumbent Bush Sr.
By comparison, Al Gore had a 19 point convention bounce in 2000 and still lost - it wasn't enough!
Here are the convention bounces of other losers...
Bob Dole (1996) - 15 points
George Bush Sr (1992) - 16 points
Mike Dukakis (1988) - 11 points
Walter Mondale (1984) - 16 points
Jimmy Carter (1980) - 17 points
Gerald Ford (1976) - 7 points
Hubert Humphrey (1968) - 4 points
Taking the cake for the most pathetic convention bounce in modern political history is George McGovern from 1972. Minus 3 points! And we all know how THAT race turned out.
So if the 4-point convention "bounce" for Kerry holds, he is in Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern territory here.
Personally, I think Newsweak is being overly optimistic. I don't sense any Kerry bounce out there. And that spells big trouble for the Kerry campaign as the Bush campaign is about to role into high gear and get the spotlight next month in the Big Apple.
Kerry will not win. Unfortunately, it will not be a rejection of leftist policies, per se -- the man is simply unattractive and not likeable. Swing voters are influenced by those sorts of factors, and boy, did the Dems pick a dud.
With all of your expertise, can you say why most polls show Nader hurting President Bush? And why would you be cheering for that?
Historically, its a very small bump. But Zogby is insisting the electorate is already decided, and it's very hard to move anyone. I guess that will be proved or disproved by any bump Bush gets after the RNC convention.
They are always asking people who they will vote for, in these polls, but what about a strength of conviction type of poll? Do they have catagories like "Absolutely positive vote for Bush" or "probably Bush but not really sure?"
EXCELLENT post! I am sure the dems expected more in the way of a double-digit bounce.
I admit I didn't see a lot of the dem's convention, as I couldn't stand all the false patriotism and "I'm a Vietnam Hero" bull****, but from what I did see, the Senators Kedwards did not make their case. They tried to hit on all of the Republican strong points, and in my opinion, failed miserably.
If you're talking simply about "convention bounce" surely you are right. But there are other dynamics working that I think will make it closer than the "non-bounce" would make it seem.
We are seeing another "crude bounce" that is already threatening to choke off the economic recovery. Not that any of that is W's fault, but you know how the Dims will play it.
Note, I said closer, not close. The only thing that will make it close is if Osama bombs the Washington Monument in person, gets away, and says W double dog dared him to do it.
Yes, but they look like they're deeply in love. It's great for the fudge packer and thong snapper vote.
For several reasons I am very confident that Bush will have a much more impressive bounce than Kerry seems to have thus far.
The GOP convention will be far more effective insofar as the national security issue with people like Giuliani, etc.
COMFORTING INFO.
THANKS TONS.
Think of their audience. The Bush=Hitler crowd are about as motivated as they can be. Kerry is a dud, but he's inflated by the degree to which his base is crazily focused. Problem is, his base is also split and believes in things that make it hard for him to move towards the middle. I predict failure for him, but expect to see a interesting campaign.
I hope you are right, of course, but just for the record, Hubert Humphrey came within a hair of winning in 1968.
It was like 43%-43% with George Wallace taking the rest.
That would make a great FReep sKerry sign:
My husband says it's way too early to bother with polls. Right now the suspense means ratings for the press, otherwise, there'd be nothing to talk about.
He says Bush will win easily, the Dems will scream "voter fraud", they'll weep and gnash their teeth, and life will go on as usual.
I'm not the poster that you addressed, but I haven't seen any polls which show Nader hurting President Bush. Can you please provide links and details?
I'm not sure that's the case. The Nader platform is not appealing to a conservative, and last election Nader voters hurt Gore, not Bush. Why would that change now?
Interesting post. One thing I would say, this convention received less media coverage than most, and that might be having an effect. It's possible to not even know there was a Democrat convention this past week, much less know what went on at the convention.
Unfortunately for Kerry, the convention was the last major media event for him.
Bush still has a convention, and it promises to be memorable with Arnold, Rudy and a bona fide Dem (Zell Miller) giving prime time speeches. And since he is President, Bush is naturally going to get more attention aside from the convention.
How is Kerry going to get back into the news? This election is now officially Bush's to lose, because Kerry should have won it this week. I was one of the people who said the Dem convention would pick up more voters, glad I was wrong.
The poll Drudge linked to was conducted over a multiday period, much of it was before the Candle's speech. Any "bounce" analysis before Monday is premature.
For Bush to get any bounce out of the RNC he'll have to get a bigger audience than the DNC had.
I'm not going to read anything into Kerry's bounce or lack thereof. The polls have shown a tight race all the way through, and I've seen nothing to make me think anything will change between now and November. Those who think the President is going to pull away with this thing down the stretch are either being complacent or engaging in wishful thinking, IMHO.
It's going to be a close race and every vote counts.
Clinton (1992) - 30 points
Reagan (1980) - 13 points
Carter (1976) - 16 points
While this is not cause to get over-confident, it does essentially make the race Bush's to lose in my humble opinion. I do not think there is much enthusiasm for Kerry out there. People who support him tend to be anti-Bush rather than pro-Kerry. Kerry has had his chance to win converts and he hasn't come through. On the other hand, Bush still has a chance to bring a lot of people back over into his camp. I think he will, especially when people are made to realize that John Kerry has the most liberal voting record (when he does vote) of any senator in the country. Even more liberal than Hillary or Ted Kennedy!
So Kerry may have inherited the anti-Bush vote but that is not the stuff of winning campaigns. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were also hated by the Left and they both rolled to re-election in 1972 and 1984.
He had 41 percent prior to Gov. Wallace (18 percent) being shot and he stayed flat (losing a point or two) while Nixon went on to win with over 60 percent if I remember correctly. (520 - 17 Electoral votes)
Every one of the elitist media employees, com-symps, leftists of all sorts, some yellow-dog Democrats, and assorted malcontents had made up their minds feeeeeeellings early to vote for McGovern. There was no one left to bounce.
Even though McGovern slipped to more than ten points behind by Oct. the mainstream media employees just knew he'd take the bigger states and win. They didn't know anyone who planned to vote for Nixon.
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