August 01, 2004
Swinging A Dead Cat
You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a dead-cat-bounce poll...
Mimicking the same dead-cat-bounce that came from picking John Edwards as his VP choice, John Kerry is getting another such bounce from his nominating covention. This poll reflects the jello shake in the numbers that other polls such as Newsweek and Rasmussen are showing.
Bounces come from movements in the perception of the electorate - and in this cycle especially, minds are like concrete - often all mixed up, and permanently set. It is difficult to imagine a change in perception among voters, at least from a few nights of television coverage and analysis.
Additionally, the days of the huge bounce are likely over, save for drastic debate performances or revealing photos of a candidate with a bedpost goat. As information saturation occurs from 24-hour cable news commentary, Internet news outlets, talk radio, and the great number of Internet opinion sites (where are you reading this?), the days of a great many people coming into new information that changes perspectives on a candidate are waning.
In 2000, Bush got a bit of a bump from his convention, and Al Gore a fairly sizable one - but Gore's bump simply brought him back to even, as Bush was never going to win by double digits against Gore. With the poll results already approximating party and registration parity, the poll results slosh around in a shallow pool of independents, who right now simply aren't married to either candidate, and hence, the poll results simply ride waves of outliers and margins of error...
Expect that to change in a month or two - the race will break, one way or the other, and that break will create it's own momentum among those who aren't the party faithful. Whoever get's that wave, will ride it to victory...