Thursday, November 26, 2009

Opinion

Convention Bounce in Evidence for Obama

August 28, 2008 09:17 PM ET | Bonnie Erbe | Permanent Link | Print

Reader Comments

The Big O Baracked My World last night!

Grandpa McCain's choice for VP will not be so happy with his policies when her igloo is foreclosed on, her fuel costs skyrocket, (Alpo could go to $4.00 a can or higher), and who wants the right to bare arms when it's 40 below?

This woman will be one pacemaker beat away from the Presidency and I certainly wouldn't buy any green bananas if I were McCain.

He's so old, he was around when the Dead Sea was just sick!

Like they say; Whether it's Iditarod or politics; unless you're the lead dog, the scenery never changes. (Kind of like the Republican Party).

Go O

"Conventions are known to give a 10-15 pt bounce"

---------

Can you name one convention in history where this is happened? That's right...it hasn't. Kerry and Gore both had essentially no "bounce" and Clinton only had an 8% rise in poll numbers post convention.

Please analyze where you get your information from before posting opinions erroneously stated as fact. Your entire post is full of factual inaccuracies.

Bounce Logic

One thing I've acquired over the years is a sense for sniffing out where legend becomes truth. One of those items is the notion of the big bounce. While it's true that conventions frequently yield a bounce, the 15% figure being bandied about by Republican spin meisters has become truth where little evidence exists to support it. I'm quite certain they mentioned this number last week so that when the bounce came in at any level less than 15%, which of course it will, they'll be able to retort that, "the Obama bounce is lame. He's a fading star."

While I'm too jaded to believe that a lead by any Democrat is legitimate come election day, the fact that on his best day McCain hasn't cracked 45% bodes well for Obama. However, he needs to crack 50% after this convention to regain momentum, in my view. One thing about Obama that is overlooked, though, is that he is not afraid of working hard to win. This is not a photo-op guy. Just ask the Clinton campaign.

Yes, thank you. We needed the bounce and we are getting it.

Now, the challenge is to maintain it. Michelle understands.

People in politics are MEAN. Especially when the faces of those "people" are actually only masks for soulless entities called corporations.

Be not deceived. Barack, a man, is running against forces who do not intend to willingly give up their power.

Obama

Amazing. Sen. Obama's acceptance speech was simply amazing. He was inspiring, tough, gracious, tender, pointed, creative, alive, human, joyful, serious, challenging, hopeful. For the 40+ minutes of his speech, if just for a moment, we saw ourselves as Americans, no longer just Democrats, Republicans, Independents. He challenged us, left it us to us. He left us voters with a choice: working together to solve the problems confronting us all or staying stuck in partisan angry belligerent cynical gridlock no where politics.

A bounce is relative.

His three point gain today was clearly a result of Hillary Clinton's fantastic speech. But he was at 48% to McCain's 42% in early August - so one could argue it's still not really a bounce... he's just back to where he was before he had three weeks of plummeting polls.

Conventions are known to give a 10-15 pt bounce - Obama was losing ground for the first two days of his. I would expect he'll get at least another 5 points from Bill Clinton's speech and his nomination speech - if he gets above 50% that will be the first time he's been there. However, it seems McCain has timed his VP pick and convention to suck the air out of what bounce he gets. We'll see.

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About Bonnie Erbe

Bonnie Erbe is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report and hosts PBS's weekly news analysis program, To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe. She also writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column for Scripps Howard News Service.

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