NEWS: Kerry Gets a Wee Bounce

POLITICS: Kerry Gets a Wee Bounce

John Kerry got a four-point bounce in a Newsweek poll after the Democratic Convention.

It's a bit early for Kerry partisans to get too excited, though. For starters, each party gets a bounce in the polls after their week of media coverage. Bush and the Republicans will get their own.

This, too, should make the Democrats pause:

This is a tight race in a divided country. If I were a Republican, I wouldn't bet on a big Bush bounce.

Ya these Conventions are Ridiculous, when u bring out singers, actors, entertainers, etc... they are trying to trick the public hopefully the public to buy into these brainwashing political antics....the dems are selling.....the 4pts thats the best all these kiss asses can do!!! Im gone

I have a feeling the wheels are going to come off the Democratic campaign soon, and I suspect the same for the Republican campaign. As we all know the wrong party has been winning elections for the last 20 years. Lets vote Green!

yes, let's. just not in november 2004...

The first problem here, of course, is that this poll is completely worthless. It's not comparable to previous "bounce polls" because it measures the wrong time frame. As Ruy Teixeira notes:

Hey, but this completely useless data fits easily into lazy media received non-wisdom about how Kerry is a weak, ultraliberal candidate in deep against a Popular Wartime President, so let's just run with it although it's not a "bounce" poll at all!

This USA Today poll showed Kerry actually losing ground after his convention. This poll was conducted Friday and Saturday, not on Thursday.

Of course, there are always the margins of error and other built-in flaws of polls.

Televising the conventions changed their character from a political function to a media function. That journalists outnumbered delegates three to one insured that nothing newsworthy was going to happen at the event. The death of the bounce is due to the death of the convention as a part of the political process.

Rather than bemoan the passing of the smoke filled room from the political process, I think we should all be talking instead about how we can use current information technology to hijack the political process so that power rests in the hands of bloggers like...me! We just need to amend McCain-Feingold so that the only empowered citizens are those who blog, instead of the academic-journalistic power brokers we currently have.

After all, you can't trust me any less than you do the people who our current candidates, right?

There's a nice analysi of recent polling data from the folks at Zogby that paints a very different picture from the Newsweek info.

Of course, I'm including the caveat that should always be included - the only poll that matters is the one in November.

It doesn't matter. Were all screwed, no matter whose canidate wins.

At this point, small bumps in polls and nit-picking over popularity are irrelevant. If Kerry wins, Bush's administration will pay to have him shot. If Bush wins, he'll blast us all into next tuesday with nuclear holocaust (hopefully the only holocaust that will occur under his riech... ahem... reign)

Anyone with half a sense of realism must recognize that were all doomed as Americans.

hyperburn299,

The end of the Cold War without nuclear armaggedon must have come as a big letdown for you. I suppose that I should give you credit for carrying a torch all these years, but it's so hard to distinguish between undying love and stalker obsession.

Has the concept of nuclear destruction filed a restraining order against you?

On the other hand, why exactly do you think that Bush is less responsible in his use of force than the Mullahs of Iran?

I don't debate that Bush is any less responsible with his usage of force than that of Islamic extremists. I know his motives are driven by money, power AND religious bias, as opposed to just straight religious bias.

As for the question of whether or not it will be a holocaust of nuclear origin, I am not sure. It may be biological. I wouldn't put it past our heartless dumbfuck of a president and his panel of droogs.

Method of human disposal aside, I am still assured in our mutual destruction by asinine politicians.

On an interesting side note, I notice that you don't address my comment about Bush's forceable seizure of power... planning anything, Republican friends???

(seriously, it's all in good fun. I know my posts sound like paranoid ramblings, and that is partially the point. The fact that any of you might take them seriously for a half second is really the point of the post... namely, we live in a country where such outlandish ideas might have bearing in the near future.)

And, yes, nuclear destruction filed a restraining order against me... but I'll show him!!!

:: shakes fist wildly ::

Aren't these polls conducted with people who have voted in past elections? If so I think the (+-) is hard to figure in. I see this election being different than most in the past...I see many first time voters going democratic.

I can't get past the topic heading. "Wee bounce" sounds so dirty

Right.