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Presidential nominees typically get a bounce out of successful conventions, and Sen. Barack Obama’s performance was a hit by any metric. (More on that later.) After a busy weekend, however, national polling shows that Obama got no bounce at all.

DENVER - It has become a tradition at national conventions to speculate on the size of the presidential candidate's "bounce." The gold standard was set by Bill Clinton in 1992, when the newly anointed Democratic nominee busted out of his convention and rolled by bus across the swing-state heartland, buoyed by a hike of 16 percentage points in the Gallup poll.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday—the day before the Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin—shows Barack Obama ahead of John McCain by three percentage points both with and without leaners. That’s exactly the same edge Obama enjoyed a week ago on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. Today’s numbers show a one-point improvement for McCain, but Obama still leads 47% to 44%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 49%, McCain 46%

One of the first national polls weighing the impact of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential nominee shows little change in a tight presidential race. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released tonight gives the Democratic ticket of Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden a 49 percent to 48 percent edge over the Republican ticket of Senator John McCain and Palin. That compares to a tie at 47 percent each when voters were asked earlier in August to choose between Obama and McCain, without their running mates mentioned. The survey, which was conducted Friday through Sunday, found that...

It is incredible, but the designation of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate seems to have totally obliterated Barack Obama's bounce from his convention and after his magnificent speech. Zogby actually has McCain two ahead and Rasmussen's Friday only data shows Obama only three up! This confirms what we have suspected -- that the linkage of McCain and Bush was the weak link in Obama's convention. By showing how different he is and by taking the step of choosing an independent, outspoken, gutsy, reformist candidate like Palin as vice president, McCain has shown how much he is the un-Bush....

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday—the day before the Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin—shows Barack Obama ahead of John McCain by three percentage points both with and without leaners. That’s exactly the same edge Obama enjoyed a week ago on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. Today’s numbers show a one-point improvement for McCain, but Obama still leads 47% to 44%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 49%, McCain 46% There have been significant changes in perception of John McCain in the two days of polling since he named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as...

Republican John McCain's surprise announcement Friday of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate - some 16 hours after Democrat Barack Obama's historic speech accepting his party’s presidential nomination - has possibly stunted any Obama convention bump, the latest Zogby Interactive flash poll of the race shows. The latest nationwide survey, begun Friday afternoon after the McCain announcement of Palin as running mate and completed mid-afternoon today, shows McCain/Palin at 47%, compared to 45% support for Obama/Biden. In other words, the race is a dead heat. The interactive online Zogby survey shows that both Obama and McCain have solidified...

Barack Obama was due to arrive in Denver on Wednesday to claim the Democratic nomination amid fears that his party is split and he is being eclipsed by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Opinion polls show that Mr Obama has received little or no "bounce" from the start of his convention or his picking Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate. The Gallup daily tracking poll had Mr Obama up by one percentage point on Monday but Mr McCain ahead by two on Tuesday. Mr Obama will make history on Thursday night when he accepts his party's nomination, becoming the...

There's no Obama-Biden bounce, according to the latest tracking polls. In fact, as of Wednesday morning, Scott Rasmussen reports a 47-46 one-point lead for McCain. Gallup has the race even and indicates that conservative Democrats — including married women — are peeling away from Obama-Biden. Has a McCain bounce occurred during the Democratic convention? It's not out of the question. Sen. Hillary Clinton gave a strong speech Tuesday night, at one point invoking a powerful Reaganesque sense of American optimism and confidence. Good for her. But the early morning line Wednesday didn't show any bump for Obama, despite Hillary's endorsement....

PRINCETON, NJ -- It's official: Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll...

For them, this is supposed to be the Democrats' year, an inevitable march towards the White House after the catastrophic defeats of 2000 and 2004. Almost everything seems to be going their way: unpopular president, disenchantment with the Iraq war, a faltering economy and an inspirational Democratic candidate. What is worrying the Democrats, in spite of all these pluses, is that Obama's poll lead has remained stubbornly small. A tracking poll by RealClearPolitics published yesterday has Obama on 46.9% compared with John McCain's 43.3%. "I think there are a lot of Democrats who are nervous," said Tad Devine, chief strategist...

AS the presidential candidates enter the three-month sprint to November, Barack Obama must be wondering: If that didn't do it, what will? "That" is his Berlin speech. "It" is assuage anxieties about his understanding of the need to supplement diplomacy with military force. Obama exhorted Germans to be more willing to wage war, in Afghanistan. He was right to do so. But polls taken since his trip abroad don't indicate that Obama succeeded in altering the oddest aspect of this campaign: Measured against his party's surging strength, he's dramatically underperforming. Surely this is related to anxieties about his thin resume...

The significant news coverage Barack Obama is receiving on his foreign trip has not translated into a bounce in his numbers, a just-released FOX News poll shows. Obama now holds the slimmest possible edge over John McCain, leading by just 41 percent - 40 percent in a head-to-head contest. In fact, Obama’s support is down slightly from his 45 percent - 41 percent advantage last month. Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from July 22 to July 23. During that time Obama was traveling in Jordan, Israel and Palestinian territories. In...

WASHINGTON — An accused enemy combatant held at Guantanamo Bay told a military hearing he was physically as well as mentally tortured there by having to read a newsletter full of 'crap,' being forced to use unscented deodorant and shampoo and having to play sports with a ball that would not bounce. Majid Khan of Pakistan denied any connection to Al Qaeda and said he was tortured and his family hounded by U.S. authorities, according to a redacted transcript released Tuesday by the Pentagon. Khan told an April 15 hearing called to determine whether he was rightly classified as an...

PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - A space capsule returning solar particles to earth has crashed in the Utah desert before it could be captured in a mid-air recovery by a Hollywood stunt helicopter pilot, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Wednesday.

Welcome to the DNC 2004 Awards Show! "I'm opinionated and off my meds, so you can Shove it!" Back by popular demand (OK, maybe I'm projecting), is the DNC 2004 Awards Show! You’ve watched the convention, now vote for your favorite moments. This is truly a Freepers Choice Award Show. 40 awards total to be doled out. Who annoyed you the most? Who wouldn’t leave the stage? What were the worst quotes? The most overused clichés? Who caused you to use the most barf bags? Well, sit right back and check out the nominees and relive the experience…*** 2000...

Backward Bounce By Joel Mowbray FrontPageMagazine.com | August 2, 2004 For very good reason, the rule of thumb is that a presidential candidate gains ground following his party’s convention: It almost always happens. It happened four years ago, despite Al Gore’s nearly incoherent rant. It happened in 1984, after Walter Mondale reaffirmed his pledge to raise taxes. It even happened for Jimmy Carter in 1980 after a brutal civil war with Ted Kennedy. But it didn’t happen for John Kerry. According to the USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, conducted Friday and Saturday, Kerry lost a total swing of 5 points from the...

CNN is reporting that among likely voters Bush's numbers went up with Bush getting 50% and Kerry 47%. The poll was done after the convention. This means Kerry got a negative bounce.

A Zogby poll taken while the four-day Democratic Convention was underway shows that the Kerry Edwards ticket has failed to add even a single percentage point to its support. The poll of 1,001 likely voters conducted Monday through Thursday found that 48 percent support the Kerry Edwards ticket - the exact same number that backed the Massachusetts Democrat in a July 6-7 survey. The only good news for the presidential hopeful came in the category of undecideds, which had grown to eight points in the latest survey, up from five points in the earlier sample. The latest Zogby numbers show...

The odd couple, John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, albeit inadvertently, keep providing the electorate with reasons why they should all reelect GWB. A few samples: (1) Running against a president with impeccable defense credentials, Kerry said on network TV that he "hadn't had time for a national security briefing on a new al-Qaeda threat." Kerry remarked on CNN that the Bush administration offered to brief him on the latest al-Qaeda threat, but "I just haven't had time." I guess he had to find time from his and Edwards continually televised Love-Fest and Ball-Throwing to get the briefing this past...