Sep 8, 2008 01:24 PM
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New York, 6:37 PM
Tue Feb 9
57 posts in the last 24 hours
Isn't it bizarre how no one could shut up about Obama and how he'd get a "convention bounce" and then it was maybe not very big but then it suddenly got big, and everyone was all "Obama is ahead hooray!" And the RNC looked like a terrible stupid joke for a couple days, until Sarah Palin gave that well-regarded venomous speech of lies and America said "we like her!" (Though her negatives are high and she is polarizing!) And McCain gave his speech that everyone universally panned—except that it attracted a huge football-lead-in audience and was kind of explicitly geared to appeal not to raging party faithful types (despite pandering lines here and there) but to dumb undecideds who haven't paid attention until just this last week, when they are "supposed to." When will the McCain bounce happen? everyone asked. Your answer: today. Ok? So stop hyperventilating and turn off your iPhone electoral map application and maybe have another beer. Let's look at some of the analysis from "experts":
As Slate's election scorecard puts it: "A post-convention bounce puts McCain ahead of Obama in a few national polls for the first time, prompting Pollster.com to shift its overall national trend from 'strong Obama' to 'lean Obama.'" Panic!!
Five Thirty Eight says, yes, the RNC and Sarah Palin energized formerly wary right-wing Christian Republicans and now they're answering more pollsters and identifying more strongly with the party and the ticket and more likely to call themselves "likely voters."
Right now, the race seems strictly polarized, right down the traditional, predictable lines, and it looks like Obama will try to win Kerry's states and hope for one more. He'll be aided by the economy, probably.
And it's stupid reporting or analysis to obsess over each slight shift in the polls (outliers aside, each candidate's individual numbers have barely shifted from the mid-to-high-40s since the beginning of the summer), especially when you predicted those bounces and setbacks.
Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at alexp@gawker.com.
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