There's no question that Obama got a convention "bounce" in the polls. Both Rasmussen and Gallup reported the bounce in their daily tracking polls on FRIDAY.
Both pollsters said the bounce they saw on Friday did NOT result from Obama's speech. That's because almost all the polling that contributed to the bounce was done BEFORE Obama's speech.
Then, on Saturday, the pollsters' numbers showed NO bounce.
So:
-- Polling conducted BEFORE the speech shows a bounce.
-- Polling conducted AFTER the speech shows NO bounce.
"The Best Speech Ever" made to 38 million people DIDN'T MOVE THE NEEDLE.
Either that, or Sarah Palin stole Obama's bounce.
Sounds impossible, doesn't it? Some wacky Alaskan church lady is beating Barack Obama? It sounds impossible because you're a Democrat, and you love to misunderestimate Republicans.
Enough. Stop it.
That's what George Bush said after he "won" in 2000: "They misunderestimated me."
Here's the problem: I LIKE Sarah Palin. I don't want her to be president or vice president, but I'd share a beer and moose burger with her. And my podmate at work wants to lay her. He said so three times Friday after initially dismissing her as a ridiculous choice for VP. I've never heard men say that about a female politician before. But Rasmussen said she's more popular with men than with women.
But ... the women who gave us two terms of George Bush love Sarah Palin. These are the women who have ROUTINELY outhustled Democrats in the ground game, getting rightwingers to the polls to vote for Bush.
As lithiumcola said, Palin's job is to create a ground game for McCain to rival Obama's powerful ground game.
Gov. Sarah Palin will rake in the votes from:
-- suburban moms (and their husbands)
-- exurban moms (and their husbands)
-- rural moms (and their husbands)
-- mega church moms (and their husbands)
-- Tractor Supply Co. moms (and their husbands)
The husbands want to have a beer or three with her, preferably without the wife finding out. And maybe, as another commenter noted in another thread, they'd like to share a cigarette with her afterward as well.
This means the Enthusiasm Gap is GONE. This means Obama NEEDS MORE MONEY than EVER.
This means he NEEDS MORE VOLUNTEERS than EVER.
And oddly enough, this means Obama can't attack Palin directly. He can't piss off those women, telling him one of their own shouldn't be president. That'll just energize them. And the Enthusiasm Gap could become an Obama problem. He has to overtly ignore Palin while continuing to assail McCain.
Obama got NO bounce from the best speech ever made, watched by the most people ever, according to Rasmussen. Don't tell me Palin was not a brilliant pick for McCain.