On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 4:24 PM, Wesley (in Texas) <[email protected]>wrote:
> >>> More interestingly to me, Silver's data shows that the three smallest >>> challenger bounces since 1968 have been in the last three election cycles >>> (2008, 2004 and 1998) >>> >> > I was going to this out (or the whole previous message and just post my > thoughts), but there has to be a typo above. (No convention in 1998). Did > you mean 2000, or 1996? > Right - sorry. The last three election cycles were 2008, 2004 and 2000. > > This is preliminary, but according to what we're seeing out of Gallup, > Reuters, and Rassmussen, Obama looks to be getting a bounce, whereas Romney > did not. (With one arguing Romney may have actually achieved a *negative* > bounce, somehow.) Romney and the Republican Party make have blown it (to > use Andrew Sullivan's words... link below), perhaps to the point of making > their convention be the *foreward* to the Democratic Convention rather than > a challenge or a 'pre-buttal'. > > One theory, according to Sam Wang of Princeton (who argues Romney got a > negative-bounce -- also see Sullivan link below), is that Romney sucked > whatever bounce he could have gotten from the convention by announcing Paul > Ryan as his running mate weeks ahead of the convention. This led to a week > of glowing reports about the earnest, honest, intelligent wonk who would > bring substance and intellectual heft to the campaign. This lasted up until > Todd Akin demonstrated how American sex-ed failed him. This also coincided > to the press changing her mind on how honest, and intelligent Paul Ryan > really was, partly due to Ryan co-sponsoring abortion related bills with > Akin, which seemed to be the excuse the press needed to fact-check > everything else Ryan said, and hypocrisy-check everything Ryan did. Of > course, Ryan did himself and Romney no favors by lying right during the RNC > when the press was in the middle of 'fact-check-his-ass' mode. > > Eric Boehlert of Media Matters (a liberal media watchdog group) has > tweeted that he has not seen any evidence of jobs numbers swaying the > polls, so he didn't think they would now. (Link to tweets below)... > Well, evaluation of the bounce will itself bounce all over if you take each poll by itself. I think it is better to look at one of the major poll aggregators to smooth out the variations. Real Clear (politically conservative but reputable) has a bounce for Romney of about 1 percentage point, while Nate Silver (politically liberal but reputable) has a bounce for Romney of about 2.5 points. Within the set of polls the aggregators look at, some the Gallup national tracking poll) showed the anti-bounce for Romney, others showed as much as 5.5 (Ipsos online). Nate has also speculated that the Ryan choice has muted Romney's bounce, not so much because of anything about Ryan (voters will either like him or not) but the timing. Historically the VP is announced during or just before the conventions, so the convention bounce also conflates whatever VP bounce there might be. By announcing Ryan so early, Romney may have robbed himself of whatever extra benefit he would have gotten. Nate has suggested that the VP bounce is even more prone to be temporary than the convention bounce, making this more likely. My own impression at the time was that Romney went with the early Ryan announcement because he was desperate to reverse the negative momentum he had experienced all summer, with the tax problems and European gaffes. All in all, I think this might have worked, so while Ryan may not have helped Romney bounce, he may have stopped him from sinking. I am a pretty partisan Democrat, but I think Boehlert is being both premature and a little paranoid. Today's Reuter's poll is promising (from my standpoint), but still not definitive, and only includes one day of interviews after the jobs report came out. *If* the jobs report is going to deflate the bounce, we would not see it until polls based on Friday, Saturday and Sunday come out (which will be Monday). Also, there is a legitimate reason for wondering if this Jobs report would have a bigger effect on poll numbers than previous one - we are now closer to the election, with more voters focused on the comparison between Romney and Obama. The Republicans just had a week of arguing that continuing high unemployment and large deficits mean the President has failed and should not be reelected. The Democrats just had a week of arguing that after inheriting an economy that lost more than 8 million jobs in the Great Recession, Obama has turned it around to a jobs market that has expanded for now I think 30 straight months, adding about 4.5 million jobs back, and that this has earned him another term. Will the report of another month that added jobs, but less than was hoped for, make more voters accept the Republican argument, or will they be convinced by what I think most observers would agree was a more successful and convincing Democratic convention? Not to mention, just talking about the jobs report took something away from the post-convention coverage, which would have been positive and presumably helpful for Obama. As I say, the early signs point to around a 5 point bounce for Obama, which would be larger than Romney's 1 to 2.5 point bounce, though of course we will never know if maybe the jobs report held the bounce down from being even higher (we might look to see if the Monday bounce is a little smaller than the Sunday bounce). -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
