JUNIOR: He's the reform candidate, Daddy.
PAPPY: Yeah?
JUNIOR: Well the folks seem to like that reform. Maybe we should get us some.
O Brother Where Art Thou
2000
Gallup's latest tracking poll (a.k.a. "the worst thing to happen to journalism in ten years") shows Obama going from up one point (45%-to-44%) over McCain yesterday (and a 2-point deficit the night before) to a six-point lead (48% to 42%) today.
Given that the poll is based on a three-day moving average, the swing to Obama in last night's survey must have been a thing to behold -- I'm guessing it had to be ten points at least.
We know -- in no uncertain terms -- that the Obama campaign thinks the Gallup tracking poll is crap, and I personally don't put much store in post-convention bounces anyway: They come, they go, and things usually end up more or less back where they started. But, damn, ten points in one night?
And Obama hasn't even given his big speech yet.
Right before the convention started, some dickhead on the McCain campaign dangled a memo in front of the Terry Schiavo wannabes in the press, predicting a 15-point post-convention bounce for Obama when all is said and done. At the time, it looked like a moronically obvious attempt to spin the expectations game (so of course, the media zombies gobbled it right up).
But at this point, I'm thinking it may end up looking like wizardry.
Update 8:45 PM EDT: CA Pol Junkie (I guess the name is the program) comments below:
It's not hard to get Excel to break out the day-by-day results.
August 20: O 45 M 43
August 21: O 45 M 44
August 22: O 45 M 45
August 23: O 45 M 46
August 24: O 45 M 44
August 25: O 42 M 48
August 26: O 48 M 40 (post-Michelle)
August 27: O 54 M 38 (post-Hillary)
So I was wrong. It wasn't a 10-point bounce last night. It was an 8-point bounce -- on top of a 14-point bounce the night before.
PAPPY: I'll reform you, you soft-headed sonofabitch! How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent!