Reverse Media Bounce

WashingtonPost ^ | 08/06/04 | Howard Kurtz

[Pikamax]

Reverse Media Bounce Friday, Aug 06, 2004; 8:21 AM

Four years ago, the pundits trashed Al Gore's convention speech. He sounded like a "vice president on speed," Sam Donaldson said.

But then a funny thing happened. Gore shot up, by as much as 17 points, in Newsweek, USA Today and Washington Post polls. And the tone of the coverage was dramatically altered. The previous blather was inoperative -- the convention was a smashing success!

Who ya gonna believe, journalists seemed to be telling themselves, your own eyes or the polls?

Now the opposite seems to be happening. Kerry's tightly scripted convention drew lots of favorable coverage, especially his address ("I've never seen the man speak so well"--Joe Klein), and yet the Boston bash didn't move the polling meter. Kerry may even have dropped a couple of points. So now the media -- who ya gonna believe? -- are in full reassessment mode.

Maybe it was a lousy convention after all!

Old CW: Lack of Bush-bashing a brilliant strategy, appealing to independents.

New CW: Bored everyone to tears.

Left unexamined is the possibility that maybe conventions just don't matter that much anymore, or that there are so few undecideds in 2004 that neither candidate has much room to bounce. That, after all, would call into question what 15,000 of us were doing all week in Boston.

[capt. norm]

Meanwhile Bush has gotten people really excited here in the formerly all-Democrat Bay County, Florida.

They announced that Bush would be coming here next Tuesday and that free tickets would be available today at the Republican (local) headquarters.

This morning there were people who camped out all night, waiting to get their tickets.

32 years ago when I moved here the tide had just started turning. Voters went Democrat for local offices and voted Republican in the presidential race. Now it's overwhelmingly Republican, as is all of the rest of the Florida (Central Standard Time) Panhandle.

(Many of these voters heard on tv that Florida had already gone for Gore before they even got to the polls to vote)

[dawn53]

Funniest quote:

Something seems to get into Teresa Heinz Kerry's system by the end of the day. At morning events, she is more on-message and sometimes even an inspiring speaker. By the evening she is, as she described herself to a crowd last night, 'sassy.'

Hmmm...and I wonder what that could be?

[kabar]

Left unexamined is the possibility that maybe conventions just don't matter that much anymore, or that there are so few undecideds in 2004 that neither candidate has much room to bounce.

Howard, before drawing conclusions, let's wait until the end of the GOP convention. Otherwise, you sound like you are rationalizing why Kerry received no bounce.

[catpuppy]

The Kerry bounce: Makes the dead cat bounce look like a superball on a trampoline.