Bounce!

No, not the Ben Affleck movie (Though I'm a big fan of your work, you talentless hack!!!).

I'm talking about the bounce a recent Gallup poll notably did not give to Kerry following the Democratic National Convention. Its the norm for Presidential canidates to get a small bounce in the numbers following all the hoopla surrounding the convention.

But Kerry didn't get it. Even with Obama, who was way better than that annoying little girl with red hair they brought out the first night who reminded me of this kid I used to know back in 5th grade who was always getting stuff stuck in her braces and...there I go again.

So when something doesn't happen that everyone expects to happen, the pundits come out, leaving their dark basements and usenet forums, to steal the night and feed on the weak minded people.

People like Ben Affleck, poor guy.

They've said that voters are paying closer attention to the election, they've said the opposing party has been more aggressive, they've even suggested that the major TV networks coverage cutbacks might have had some effect, even though everyone knows that most Americans get all their news from The Daily Show.

These are all good hypotheses, perfectly fit for some Dartmouth undergrad's poli-sci paper. A paper that would probably not reference Ben Affleck.

In this case, however, I think they're looking a bit too far into things. In the Gallup poll Bush was leading Kerry 51% to 47%, which puts him outside of the Margin of Error of ± 3, but just barely. In other words, unlike several past presidential elections, the two are running very close. So close that any real bounce might be hard to detect anyway.

We'll see if Bush gets any more points from the New York convention later this month.