[lbo-talk] USA Today: Bush, not Kerry, got poll bounce

B. docile_body at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 3 10:59:15 PDT 2004


So why did Bush, not Kerry, get the bounce?

Tue Aug 3, 7:09 AM ET

By Susan Page, USA TODAY

There was a bounce after last week's Democratic National Convention.

But it went to President Bush (news - web sites), not John Kerry (news - web sites).

Pollsters and strategists are puzzling over Kerry's failure to get a boost from a convention that even critics acknowledged went almost precisely as planned. Polls show it improved voters' impressions of Kerry as a strong leader and a potential commander in chief. It burnished views of the Democratic Party.

Still, in the USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, Kerry's support dipped 2 percentage points among likely voters compared with a poll taken the week before the convention. Bush's standing rose 5 percentage points. (Related story: Poll results )

Those changes aren't huge, and the survey has a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points for the sample of 1,129 likely voters. But the direction they signal raises questions about a contest that continues to defy political assumptions.

Republicans were delighted. Bush strategist Matthew Dowd dubbed it an oxymoronic "negative bounce."

[...]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=11&u=/usatoday/sowhydidbushnotkerrygetthebounce



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