You’re right as rain about this.
My gut feeling is that round this time in an election year ordinary Americans carrying this country on their backs whilst raising the citizens and soldiers of tomorrow start to pay attention. Never mind that this particular election “year” has lasted forever.
During the summer of an election year, polls usually reflect voters’ registration rather than necessarily who those polled will vote for come the fall. Democrats have way higher registrations than Republicans so polls around this time should reflect very high leads for the Democrats. Once folks start paying attention the pubbie tends to go up in the polls.
It’s very, very telling that OBama, despite trips to Europe with stoned Germans attending rock concerts with the featured Messiah speaker and a prolonged almost laughable VP sweepstakes, Obama keeps sliding.
BUT....this convention will be the key. Cause if you don’t get a bump from your convention, especially as this is the event when Americans do take a moment to see who’s running, then you’re dead meat.
All signs lead to a blowout against OBama....so says I.
I don’t follow polling too much but IIRC over several decades the Demagogues often lose 10-15 % points from this point in the summer to the election. Seems to be b/c at this point it’s been almost all media propaganda but then people start to pay more attention.
I think Dukakis was up a lot at this point in time??? Then people started to notice what a squishy weasel he was/is and he slid badly. Susan Estrich did a masterful job with his campaign, of course. /s