My Dad does something I don’t do — he watches the 24/7 cable TV "news" channels — so he’s usually much more up on the latest spin than I am. Yesterday, while I was pulling nails from a large pile of lumber in my driveway so I could reuse it, he mentioned having seen that Obama didn’t get a "bounce" in the polls from the convention.
My reaction: Well, of course not — that was not a convention designed to appeal to independents. It was aimed at the hearts and minds of the already committed. Even Obama’s speech, which I had expected to go well beyond that, was (for him) pretty much party boilerplate. If you want a bump up in the polls, you have to appeal to people who aren’t already for you, and the Obama campaign didn’t do that last week. Hence my Sunday column.
Of course, there are different schools of thought as to whether Obama got a bounce or not. CNN says not. Gallup says he did. The WSJ today handled it about right, saying merely that "Early polls gave mixed readings on how much of a bounce Sen. Barack Obama got from the Democratic convention."
Then of course there’s the usual silly back-and-forth over expectations.
The bottom line is, this is what it was before the Democratic convention — a close race. And the only poll that counts is the one in November.
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There may be a bounce.
This guy saw the start of one last week and provides some helpful guidance on interpreting the polls.
Today this guy sees a big one.
Obama got a small bounce, maybe 3 points, but I’m not sure it had that much to do with the convention. People are starting to look at his pick for VP and wondering if McCain is, indeed, getting a bit senile. Bad as Sanford would have been he has at least served in the House and is governor of a state 8 times the population of Alaska.
SC having such a huge state budget is nothing to be proud of, but it is not Sanford’s fault, either.
Meanwhile, neither Obama or Biden has ANY experience running any business successfully. Obama nor his wife could make a living as lawyers.
Thanks, Spaceman. You’re certainly the Brittany Spears of this blog intellectually.
Your hero, Junior Bush, now there’s a bidness man. The only person in the history of the world to lose money in oil in Texas. The man who made his fortune off corporate welfare from the taxpayers.
And I’ll wager Barack made more money as an attorney than you ever declared to the IRS.
Obama, in fact, did not make $30,000 a year as an attorney until a few years ago, when the Daley machine suddenly started paying him $8,000 a month for nothing. In 2000, Obama couldn’t afford to go to the Democrat convention, and couldn’t rent a car, according to his autobiography.
Then they ran him for office.
Then his wife, also struggling as a lawyer, was appointed to the board of a hospital for $120,000 a year and a few meetings. After Barack was elected to the US Senate, Mrs. Obama got over a $@00,000 raise, according to FEC documents.
Then convicted swindler Rezko helped the Obama’s buy a $1,500,000 house for cheap, plus get the lot next door for free.
After Barack was elected to the US Senate, Mrs. Obama got over a $200,000 raise, according to FEC documents.
You’re right, AKA Geuro – I am not plugged into all the bribery income like the Obama’s. Mine is all on the up-and-up, from large corporations, for real work, like most real Americans.