Posted on 09/24/2004 7:28:05 AM PDT by ironmike4242
Recent comments by Kerry campaign "guru" Tad Devine hinted that Bush's bounce is over, and that polls are moving towards Kerry. Is this true? To answer the question for myself I analyzed the horserace results from 13 major pollseters: AP/Ipos, Fox, CBS, NBC, Zogby, IBD/TIPP, Gallup, ARG, Battleground, Pew, Harris, Newsweek, and Time. I think I got them all.
METHOD
I define "momentum" for Kerry as closing the gap by a reasonable margin (a 1-2 point swing is statistically irrelevant). So I looked to see if the margin for any of these polls has closed for Kerry recently. And of course I compared Gallup to Gallup, and Time to Time. It's pointless to compare Gallup to Time for obvious reasons.
RESULTS
In two polls out of the 13 Kerry closed the Gap on Bush. The Newsweek polls showed Bush up 11 on 9/3/04, but only up 6 on 9/10/04. The second poll where Kerry gained was that bizarre Pew poll that showed Bush up 16 on 9/10/04, but only up 1 four days later. By the way I should mention that Bush led in the most recent version of every poll except the last Harris poll that had Kerry up 1 48-47. In fact Bush maintained or expanded his lead in each of the other 11 polls.
DISCUSSION
So what on earth is Tad Devine talking about when he says Kerry has momentum? Well that's simple... I've seen it before in the Dole campaign, and Pat Buchanan's primary campaigns. You need to be able to tell your volunteers, and staff that things are ok, that you're in good shape, and most importantly that they're not wasting their time working for you. We've seen several examples of this out of the Kerry camp recently. He's "ready to fight!" and "not going to sit around and let Bush blah blah blah!" These comments are little more than an attempt to energize his currently dormant voter base.
Kerry has no momentum in national polls. He has no momentum in any state polls either. Bush has moved ahead in Iowa, and Wisconsin, and he's pulled at least even in Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, and maybe Oregon AND Bush might even be competitive in places like New Jersey and Maryland. Kerry HAS to put a good face on this campaing because it's on the verge of moving completely out of his reach. The stepped-up attacks, and the false bravado should be taken for what they are.... strategy.
JMHO.
bump
The momentum line was predictable, because some of the good polls for Bush clearly oversampled Republicans, so once more polls with better sampling came out, the Bush numbers came down.
Some of us predicted a couple weeks ago that later polls, showing the actual Bush lead of 5-7 points, would be portrayed as a Kerry surge. That's now being stated by the mainstream media, but saying it doesn't make it so.
The race is pretty much frozen at this time, with Bush up by a few points, until the debates.
But Kerry has retaken the lead in Pennsylvania, and that is a big swing. Picking Florida, or a combination of Ohio/any small blue state, puts him in office.
Yeah. A big 'MO' heading straight downhill!
The answer is "follow the money".
Momentum can be described as being on offense. You can be on offense and still be behind.
When you have momentum, you start putting money in states that you still show behind in. When you don't have momentum you keep money in states you absolutely must defend. kerry pulled a bunch of money out of swing states and challenger states this week. It stands to reason that he feels like he needs to turn around before he can start attacking again.
And in this particular situation, strategy is spelled P-A-N-I-C.
Folks
All well and good, but still, fight like we are 25 points behind. That's the only way to win.
Don't get cocky.............yet.
People should learn to trust the polls about as much as they trust Dan Rather and CBS. Polls are just about as honest as Gunga Dan.
The new Gallup, Marist, and CBS all say Bush is whipping ass in the national front with a JA of 54% in one. State polls all have Bush increasing his lead. Fight now in blue Gore 2000 states. Bush shores up most of his states.
Tad Devine is a talking points wind up toy.(little monkey with clapping symbols comes to mind--cute at first but quickly becomes annoying).
Bush can still win witout Florida if he takes maine and new hampshire and new mexico. Bush is clearly ahead.
I believe you are right. The RATs are scared but want to keep the base from getting demoralized and want to keep donations flowing.
Sarasotarepublican posted a blurb yesterday from la.com about a Hollywood party for Kerry where Oracle's Larry Ellison let slip that he had just spoken to Joe Lockhart and that the RAT internal polls showed W up by seven.
Here is the link for the blurb if interested:
http://www.la.com/blog/weblog.php?id=P560
Polls show Tennessee (algores home state)voters crushing Kerry flatter than fresh cow-pucky. If he has any "mo" it sure as hell ain't 'round here!
Tad gets paid to lie just like Joe, Sandy, Mary beth, James (the snake), Paul (forehead) yada, yada.
That's a great point, and similar to one I made with another poster here after the big ARG polling dump. If Kerry was supposedly only down 2 point in Arkansas (like ARG said) then why did he pull all of his ad money out of the state? Obviously because the poll was wrong and his staff feels that he has no chance there. "Follow the money" is an outstanding point, and IMO a better way to judge the race than just poll numbers.
T
Kerry has not retaken the lead in PA and Bush is virtually winning every swing state except in MI. Bush is also buying ad time in Kerry states of ME, and OR.
2) He has re-taken PA in two, behind in a third (though narrowly);
3) PA and MI are coming, apparently, at the expense of everything else. He's trailing consistently in IA, WI, NM, and it is dead even in OR, ME, and MN. He's lost OH, and one ME elector, for sure.
So really, PA, MI, ME, and NJ are all gravy. The only question is whether Bush gets 300, 330, or 350 EVs, and how many senate seats the Dems are willing to allow Kerry to take with him.
There was an article in the Detroit Free Press today (they don't allow excerpting) about the battle for Ohio. The most laughable line was how Ohio was "crucial" to Bush's re-election efforts. Uh, no, it's crucial to Kerry's chances. Kerry can't win unless he peels off Florida or Ohio. Bush can win without one of them. That's because the battleground states are almost all blue turf, except for Florida and Ohio.
My husband's family in West Texas are all Bush haters. The Dallas/Ft. Worth area where I am is mostly Republican.
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