Bush Strategist: Race will "swing wildly" in Kerry's favor within a month [15 pts lead]

AP ^ | July 5, 2004 | LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

[nwrep]

I just got the same email. the chart is interesting.

[POA2]

Tell me where was Dole's bounce lead over Clinton in 1996? - if this is just so expected from challengers?

Where was Mondale's bump over Reagan in 1984? - Did Bush Sr. Get a big bounce out of his convention in 1992??

While I know some of this is just setting up high-expectations - and that is fine - On the other hand I would like to know JUST ONE incumbent President that was EVER down by more then 10pts that came back and won?? (modern day President).

[livius]

No, I really think this is good strategery. Kerry probably will not be up 15% (this is based on historical data, remember, not on the Lurch and his Mystery Mate), and he's going to look even worse.

Also, there are way too many Bush supporters who are taking this election for granted. I am working on the campaign in my town, and Pubbies (and even Bush-supporting Libertarians and others) are completely unwilling to get involved. They think Bush is going to win. They don't realize that Bush will win - if we all get out there and put some effort into it. Maybe this will light a fire under them. (End of rant!)

[deport]

July 30— George W. Bush’s “convention bounce” has begun early, lifting him to an 11-point lead over Al Gore — Bush’s largest advantage in the presidential race since January.

---

Gore Gets the Bigger Bounce

Al Gore has stepped out of Bill Clinton's shadow and back into political contention, bouncing to a five-point advantage over George W. Bush among registered voters, 50-45 percent. It's Gore's first edge in the presidential race since March.

Gore's gain – most of it among the key swing group, independents – more than erases the 14-point lead Bush built up at his own convention. It's a bigger bounce than Bush himself managed, and bigger than usual in polls measuring convention bounces since 1968.

Up and down

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

That is the dumbest comments they could ever make!They should be more like democrats and tell lies claiming that all these polls are false and that Kerry is losing support in all areas.

[Salvation]

Here is the url for that email

http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=2893

[fly_so_free]

15 points? EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeee......What's the matter with people?
Oh well, I guess it's to be expected- depressing though.

Speaking of the election and the Dem nomination: Two libs I work with keep telling me that the democrats aren't going to nominate Kerry. They will write in Hillary at the convention. Has anyone else heard this? I wouldn't put it past them. Or at the very list, I bet Hillary will be the VP candidate. I hope the Repubs are prepared for this, just in case.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Okay, you've convinced me. We're doomed.

[MaineVoter2002]

I think it's rather selfish for the Bush administration to be satisfied if they are 51% Bush, 49% Kerry. This is unfair to local candidates because everyone focuses on the Presidential election up to the wire. We need to give time in order to win seats in the house too!

[NavySEAL F-16]

I agree.

[SuziQ]

I think Bush's strategist shouldn't be running around making such predictions, he should be working on a strategy to make sure it does NOT happen.
He should be fired.

No, he's just making sure that the President's supporters are not caught unawares when Kerry gets his convention bump.
Don't forget, Dukakis came out of his convention 17 points ahead of #41, and got his clock cleaned in the General Election.

There are lots of people who may state a preference for Pres. Bush now, then 'change their minds' with the excitement of the Dem convention. Many will come back to the President before the election. Then there are a fair number who haven't even started paying attention; remember, that 50% is of the registered and many times likely voters. There are lots of other folks who will be polled in the next few weeks who will be just checking out the field of candidates and who will be making an emotional judgement based on an ad, or something like that. Once they start paying attention, it will be time to put the squeeze on em!

[Josh in PA]

I can't understand your logic.. Help me along here.

You would rather have Bush up 10-12 points right now, like he did in 2000 over Gore, and have that lead washed away in one 4-day span of rah rah Go Democrats.

Rather than holding back alot of our resources.. When I say resources, I don't mean just monetary resources. I also mean resources as in avenues of campaigning and messages that are going to be delivered.

Bush has plenty of stuff to say in September-October. There is no reason in spouting it out from 2003 til The Dim Convention when as we learned in 2000, it's fruitless. If the Dems hold a good convention and put on a good show they are going to get a big bounce.


I believe Rove is playing this masterfully. Rove is an artistic genius. He is painting this picture perfectly and I have supreme confidence in him. He defined Kerry before Kerry could define himself (Worked like a charm if you look at internals),

and most importantly, Rove's best cards are still in his hand, and he's going to be playing them September-October WHEN IT COUNTS!! Using these cards in Spring-Summer of 2004 is completely useless and weakens the effect of them during a period of time that is not critical at all.

[NittanyLion]

Only because they are inept or worse. They should come up with events, news, etc. ot overshadow Kerry and the Dem convention.

What sorts of things? The Dem Convention will dominate the news. The GOP Convention will do the same a month later.

Next they'll tell us how it was outside their control that Bush lost the election.

Relax...everything will play out just fine.

Are they inept, or does Hillary has some FBI files on some of them? I really think the Bush reelection team is that bad -- judge from the results so far. Bush should be ahead 10 points, not even, when the challenger is THE most liberal Senator in the US Senate with ZERO accomplishments.

The Dems could run a homeless guy from San Francisco and Bush might not be up by more than 10 points. The country is simply evenly divided at this point, although the economy is beginning to rebound and Iraq is looking up. Expect Bush's numbers to improve - but due to world events as opposed to anything his election team has done.

In the meantime, these statements need to be made so that the GOP can later say they were prepared for and expecting this bump, it's not a big deal, etc.

[FairOpinion]

"Maybe this will light a fire under them."

I agree with you that turnout will be critical and everyone must get out and vote for Bush, it's going to be very close under the best circumstances.

But watching Bush's own chief strategist sound like he has already practically given up is NOT going to energize people to get out and vote, just the opposite.

Where is the "Kerry may get an expected bounce, BUT we will make sure it will be minimal and won't last"?

He is just reporting, that oh, well, there is nothing we can do about it.

We need people there who DO something about it.

Pathetic!

[POA2]

"Regardless of whether or not Lurch gets a bump, the media will puke up some polls telling us he got a 10% bump when he names his VP and a 15%-20% bump during and after the convention."

I agree with you here - The media already have their polling results they want - it will just be matter of how they need to "tweak" the "weightings" to get the desired result -

With that said, GWB reelection camp still seems to be playing bush league type ball - We are 4 months out - The "A" game needs start showing - At the same time, Campaigns (just like sports teams) can't just turn it on and off over-night - if a team is playing bad going into the playoffs....that is bad sign.....Same thing with politics....and the GWB team has been playing awful going into the big game!

[EllaMinnow]

[Salvation]

Trying this again

From: "GeorgeWBush.com"
To: "------------------
Subject: Campaign Memo: Expected Kerry Bounce
Date: Monday, July 05, 2004 2:25 PM

TO: BC '04 CAMPAIGN LEADERSHIP
FROM: MATTHEW DOWD, CHIEF STRATEGIST
RE: EXPECTED KERRY BOUNCE

As the post-primary season winds down and Kerry's VP selection and convention approach, I wanted to share with you what we should expect polls to show in early August.

An examination of Gallup polls in presidential elections since 1976 reveals that a challenger's vice presidential selection and nominating convention can have a dramatic (if often short-lived) effect on the head-to-head poll numbers. In fact, historical analysis suggests John Kerry should have a lead of more than 15 points coming out of his convention.

As this chart illustrates:
http://www.georgewbush.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=2893

1. An average of the most recent public polls shows the race is a dead heat.
2. Assuming that Kerry enjoys the average "challenger's bounce[1]" (15.4% since 1976), we should expect the state of the race to swing wildly to his favor by early August.

Democrats themselves expect Kerry to have a sizeable lead after his convention. On Face the Nation on Sunday, DNC head Terry McAuliffe said, "We are about to pick our vice presidential nominee. We're about to go into a convention of four days and I think once we finish up our convention, I think you're going to see Senator Kerry anywhere from eight to twelve points up." ******************************************************
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Copyright 2003, BUSH-CHENEY '04, Inc.

[dandi]

Four months until the election, folks. That's an eternity as reckoned in political terms. Kerry will get the expected bounce from his convention. Economic growth is moderating (which is a good thing) but remains strong. Iraq is on track despite the wishes of the doom-and-gloom crowd. The loony Left is getting harder and harder pressed to come up with their contrived "scandals". Our team will (hopefully) come up with some well thought out domestic initiatives. Get back to school vouchers and partial, voluntary privatization of Social Security anyone? So, I am optimistic. Possible wild card: Another terrorist attack.

[deport]

Cook on the bounce........

Gore Just Might Get The Bigger Bounce
By Charlie Cook
© National Journal
July 22, 2000

When Republicans hold their convention in Philadelphia, a big topic of discussion will be the "bounce." More precisely, will Texas Gov. George W. Bush receive a big enough bounce to put him out of reach of Vice President Al Gore, who can be expected to get a bounce of his own following his party's confab in Los Angeles? Since 1984, presidential nominees have averaged a 6-point bounce after their nominating conventions. And nonincumbents tend to get a bigger bounce than incumbents.

Let's look at the recent history. During the 1996 campaign, Bob Dole averaged 33 percent in Gallup Organization polls before the Republican National Convention. In three Gallup polls conducted shortly following the convention, Dole averaged 39 percent, for a bounce of 6 percentage points. President Clinton's bounce that year was 4 points.

Unfortunately, 1992 is much more complicated to calculate, because Ross Perot's temporary departure from the race on the eve of the Democratic convention tended to skew numbers a bit. In a two-way Gallup trial heat, Clinton pulled 40 percent of the vote, and then pulled either 56 percent or 57 percent in the four polls taken before the Republican convention, for a bounce of about 16 points. President Bush got only a 5-point bounce out of his convention that year.

In 1988, Michael Dukakis averaged 48 percent in four Gallup polls taken prior to the Democrats' July 18-21 nominating convention. His support then jumped to 54 percent in one Gallup poll conducted immediately after the convention, only to drop back to 49 percent in the next poll, two weeks later. So Dukakis' bounce was either 6 points or 1 point, depending on how you calculate it. Then-Vice President Bush fared better that year. His bounce was 8.5 points.

By contrast, 1984 was a year of little, if any, bounce. The Democratic convention produced a 2.5-point bounce for former Vice President Walter Mondale, while the Republicans' netted only a 3-point bounce for President Reagan.

Obviously, bounces are far from uniform, but they're not left to chance. Two major considerations come into play. First, prior to the convention, has the nominee-to-be successfully consolidated the support of his party? That is, has he already picked the low-hanging fruit? Any candidate who has won the support of 90 percent of his party members can't very well get a bounce from them. Similarly, have independent voters who are predisposed to support one party's nominee made up their minds or are they still up for grabs during the convention?

The second important factor is how the media and the voters perceive the convention. A nominee who successfully projects the message he is trying to deliver will obviously get a better bounce than one who is "off-message," or worse yet, on the defensive because of controversy over a running mate, the party platform, or some other distraction.

In 1984, for example, Reagan already enjoyed very strong support among voters, so he got a bounce of only 3 points. Mondale's bounce was only 2.5 points, even though he had a lot of room to move upward, because he failed to deliver a message during the convention that resonated with voters. In 1992, voters knew little about Clinton going into the convention. His "Man From Hope" campaign video aired on network television during the convention, and a very well planned convention gave him the biggest bounce in recent history-16 points.

This year, Bush, who already is drawing around 90 percent of the support of Republicans, appears to have less room to move up than does Gore, who has the support of about 80 percent of Democrats. A strong performance by either nominee could help win over swing voters who are happy with the economy and the issue agenda of the Clinton Administration but are tired of the Administration's seemingly endless stream of scandals and embarrassments.

Gore, who needs to get voters to like and trust him, would seem to have more to gain from a strong performance than would Bush. Reservations about whether Bush is smart and knowledgeable enough for the job, and has sufficient experience, are more likely to be addressed in a debate rather than a speech read off a TelePrompTer at a convention.

[what's up]

Nonsense. Over-estimating is a strategy which works well.

Remember how Republicans were joining in the chorus that said Al Gore would do well in the debates?

There's no way Gore could have met the expectation...and his reputation suffered as a result.