22 Comments

• 1. neocon  |  September 1st, 2008 at 10:29 pm

  This is the moment. We are the ones we have been waiting for. A nation healed and a world repaired.

  Didn’t gain much traction I guess. Empty platitudes can only linger so long.

• 2. yekepyt  |  September 1st, 2008 at 10:35 pm

  Uh, reality check: Gallup’s got Obama up by six. Only Mark could characterize this as “dismal.” This from somebody who says that “bearing false witness” is a terrible sin (a worse sin than others — you see, God assigns a certain number of points to each type of sin… thankfully we have Mark who can tell us how many points each sin is worth).

• 3. neocon  |  September 1st, 2008 at 10:47 pm

  yekypt,

  I don’t see where Mark referenced Gallup. So how could that equate to bearing false witness?

  He cited three polls all which conflict with Gallup. But your holding up Gallup as THE poll exposes you as being closed minded, and possibly bearing false witness.

  Right?

• 4. neocon  |  September 1st, 2008 at 11:04 pm

  yekepyt,

  What no witty rebuttal? Talking points elude you?

• 5. Kahn  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 am

  Oooooooh, up by six after the convention and before the Republican one! Well everything’s ducky then.

  Of course, I’ve been on some blogs today (including my local NBC station) reading the viscous attacks on Palin’s family. Lets see how those pan out for you brownshirts.

• 6. Dennis  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 1:09 am

  This afternoon’s exhaustive CBS poll shows Obama up a solid 8 percent. Lots of comparative numbers here for you statistic freaks: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Aug08bPostDemConv.pdf

• 7. Kahn  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 1:20 am

  Thanks thrower. Just because you’re throwing muck doesn’t mean it will stick. I’ll bet Palin underestimated what a bunch of hate filled jerks she was going to have to deal with though. Wow.

  We’ll file you advice and give it all the consideration it’s due.

  Go pound sand now.

• 8. Bloodthirsty Warmonger  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 1:22 am

  Au contraire, Matt is justified in regarding Obama’s post-convention bounce as mediocre, considering the fact that he has the legacy media in his hip pocket, and after all the hype leading up to his acceptance speech.

• 9. Kahn  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 1:32 am

  Dennis - “exhaustive CBS poll ”

  Explain its make up please. Since you like adjectives so much.

• 10. Kahn  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 1:47 am

  Dennis,

  This is what I meant. Last table.

  Total Respondents 875
  Total Republicans 247
  Total Democrats 310
  Total Independents 318
  Total Registered Voters 781

• 11. Mark Noonan  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 2:01 am

  Kahn,

  You’re wasting your time - I tried to point out to the gathered lefties that there are polls, and then there are polls….they won’t care that the sample in the CBS poll was 35% Democrat and 28% Republican and thus an 8 point Obama lead will probably work out to a 2 point Obama deficit if the poll were done correctly. They are impervious to fact and reason.

• 12. Dennis  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 2:17 am

  And neocon (post 3) also doesn’t see where Mark referenced Gallup. (Look up there, Neo, where the big letters are. It’s called a headline.)

  Yes, Mark - there are polls and polls and polls. Parse them however you may, it seems in all of them right now Obama is ahead. From one percent to eight percent - weighted, unweighted, calibrated, whatever. And all of them after McCain’s big surprise, calibrated to suck the oxygen out of the Democrat’s post-convention glow.

  Remember, the big poll is still to come.

• 13. Mark Noonan  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 am

  Dennis,

  ‘cept I didn’t write the entry.

• 14. Dennis  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 3:17 am

  oops - mea culpa. posts 2 and 3 began invoking your name, and I didn’t notice the discrepancy.

• 15. yekepyt  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 am

  neocon writes: “I don’t see where Mark referenced Gallup.”

  Hi neocon, check the title of this thread, which is: “Gallup: Obama’s Convention Bounce at 4 Points.”

• 16. yekepyt  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 7:49 am

  Mark is right — Matt wrote the entry, not Mark. Looks like I’m sharing some of Mark’s leftover crow!

  Just to be clear, it’s Mark that has the direct line to God and can tell us which sins are worse than others.

  And I believe that only here on B4V could anyone characterize Obama’s poll numbers (he’s ahead in every poll) as “dismal.”

• 17. yekepyt  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 am

  Well, the polls are all in Obama’s favor, but it’s true that they can be unreliable predictors of where America’s voters are at. What other measures can we use to take the pulse of America and determine whether Obama’s campaign is getting traction?

  I mentioned a few metrics in another post:

  - the relative sales rank, on Amazon, of a book by a conservative blogger and a parallel book by a progressive blogger (currently 157,279 for the former and 5,104 for the latter, smaller being better)

  - the 84,000 people that overflowed the stadium for Obama’s acceptance speech, versus the fewer than 12,000 that will show up for McCain’s rally at the Nutter Center (tickets still available, but hurry, they’re going fast — er, no they’re not).

  - the fact that so many Republicans are missing in action at the convention: Lieberman, Schwarzenegger, Bush, Cheney, Elizabeth Dole, Ted Stevens, Larry Craig, Pat Roberts, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, Mike Johanns, Wayne Allard, Bob Schaffer, etc…. You can almost hear the crickets chirping. GOP talking points instruct us that the reason for all of these absences is the hurricane in Louisiana, but these good folks would have been no-shows or poor-shows regardless (although I do accept that Bobby Jindal [Louisiana] and Rick Perry [Texas] could explain their absences because of the hurricane).

  - Keith Olbermann’s surging ratings (thanks, kimberly, for reminding me of this one)

  Yes, Matt, indeed, “it’s not a good time for the Obama campaign.”

• 18. Kahn  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 am

  yekept - yah, so few at the convention. Gustav was ther though.

• 19. Patrick  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 am

  Bounce up to SIX points now at Rasmussen - which had been holding steady to great glee on GOP part - bounce continuing even days after the convention (and the Palin announcement).

  http://tinyurl.com/67pgnn

• 20. yekepyt  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 10:30 am

  Kahn, I am talking about the rally for McCain that is to be held at the Nutter Center, capacity 12,000.

  Plenty of tickets are still available — they were on sale way before Gustav, and are still on sale today.

  We can’t blame Gustav for McCain’s inability to fill the Nutter Center — the GOP has been trying to give the 12,00 tickets away for weeks (possibly months).

• 21. gotbrains?  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 12:46 pm

  Nice cherry picking of the polls.

  You fail to mention that in the past 2 days, we have polls showing Obama ahead nationally by 6,7,8, and 9 points:

  Gallup: Obama +6
  CBS News: Obama +8
  Hotline: Obama +9
  USA Today: Obama +7
  Rasmussen: Obama +6

  What you also fail to mention is that we have never historically had one convention immediately follow another like we have this year. The stunning selection of Palin the very next day after the Dem convention accomplished its primary mission: to staunch very favorable media discussions of the Dem convention all weekend.

  Considering the Palin announcement the very next day, the immediate start of the Repub convention, and the GUstav distraction, I’d say the fact that Obama is now ahead 6-9 points after the dem convention is a pretty strong bounce. Lets see what the Repubs get out of their pathetic convention this week.

• 22. yekepyt  |  September 2nd, 2008 at 1:21 pm

  gotbrains —

  There’s a convention this week?