Where’s The Bump?
There has been a slight uptick in Obama’s national polling since he has “clinched” the nomination and it is showing up in a number of different tracking polls, but what is so striking about this uptick is how modest and small it is. Yes, things can change, but isn’t a more or less immediate improvement the definition of receiving a “bump” from something? If Obama’s numbers go up two or three weeks from now, this will not be a “bump” from locking up the nomination, but from something else. Obama has been in his position as presumptive nominee for almost a week since the last primary, and yet the weekend polling seems to have shown very little movement. Some boosters used to boast of the possibility of a ten point gain after the nomination was wrapped up, and in most polls he has gained perhaps two or three. For the first time ever, if leaners are included, he has reached 50% in the Rasmussen tracking poll this week, and this is a mark McCain has gone over a number of times. Count me as one underwhelmed by the rallying ’round Obama.
Clinton conceded on Saturday and he’s only getting 81% of Democrats in Rasmussen’s poll. That will improve.
Dude, you’re so impatient. Is the election next week?
I for one have never said there’d be a quick and sudden bump. I see only a gradual movement towards Obama. Even so, the 6 pt lead he has over McCain looks pretty good. I saw that this morning, and I thought to myself, maybe Daniel will feel like a bit of an ass, but of course, that moment never actually happens. I’m just wondering who’s the real conservative here.
As many people have insisted, Obama’s weakness with Democrats was supposed to be the product of the nomination fight. That fight has for all intents and purposes been over for much longer than a week (almost a month, counting from North Carolina), but the weakness has not dissipated very much even now that the fight really is finished.
Why would I feel like “an ass” when there does seem to be enduring, significant disaffection among Democrats with their nominee? In the coming months, I may well be shown to be wrong in my claims about Obama’s weakness with Democratic voters, and I’ll gladly admit that I was wrong if I am, but the impatient ones were those who have been demanding that everyone accept Obama as the nominee months before he could plausibly claim that title and insisting that anyone who didn’t think he could win the general was delusional. I have assumed that things will change over the intervening months. The problem that Obama has is that the candidate of the challenging party usually doesn’t benefit from the changes that take place over the summer and fall. This post was a reaction to this notion that Sullivan was promoting of the “beginning of a bump.” A movement of a couple points could be called a bump, but then it would be an extremely small and unimpressive one.
Daniel,
Calm down, I was just joking about the “ass” thing. But honestly, I think you overstate your case, as well as the argument against your case. Obviously Obama had the nomination pretty well wrapped up a while ago, but obviously Hillary and her supporters fought on anyway, and this has been very divisive. It’s only since she formally dropped out and endorsed Obama on Saturday that the race has actually been “over”, and we can look for Obama to regain Democrats who may have been alienated during the primary campaign. So any talk of a “bump” has to be limited to the last few days. And it seems from the last poll, at least, that there’s been something like a 6 pt bump over the last week, which seems pretty good to me.
It’s not like you have no point about Obama being damaged by this campaign, which is why I’ve thought that it would take a while for Obama to recover from it. Which is also why it’s good we have almost 5 months till the election. But honestly, your impatience shows when you expect Obama to suddenly recover all the Hillary supporters in one fell swoop. We won’t really see the full picture until the post-Convention bump. I would be more worried if it weren’t for the fact that this is a wierd year altogether, so I don’t think ordinary precedents means so much, this is a year in which being a “challenger” is not a disadvantage, but a huge advantage, and the opposition is so weak. Did you see McCain’s green-screen speech the other day? I did, and the immediate thought that went through my mind was “360 electoral votes”. Now maybe that’s optimistic, but damned, this guy is an even worse campaigner than I ever thought. Likewise, during this divisive primary fight, the incumbent party has not been able to make any headway at all against them. You’d think Obama would at least be as far behind as Bill Clinton was against GB41 in 1992.
I’m not sure why you keep portraying Obama supporters as so impatient, even irrationally so, or seizing on any opportunity to make us out to be rabid cult-followers.Yes, we sure wished Hillary would have dropped out when it became clear that mathematically she had no chance, but obviously there were factors outside ordinary reality involved, since it was a Clinton’s career and ego at stake. Thankfully that’s over, and she ended it well. Now I look to see Obama gradually increase his smal lead by making himself better known to voters, and aussaging their fears of the newcomer with his superior campaigning skills. No one in the Obama camp that I know of has ever claimed that he can’t lose this, but that’s quite a different thing from criticizing those who think he can’t win. I do think you’d have to be crazy to think he can’t win, or that his prospects look dismal at this point in time. Insisting that he have some kind of huge lead, or he’s destined to fail, just doesn’t strike me as very rational. Maybe you could elaborate on that. Maybe I’m wrong. I just don’t get where you’re coming from.
Another precedent that strikes me as valid is the 1980 challenge by Reagan against Carter. In spite of Carter being very weak, Reagan didn’t overtake Carter in the polls until the last month of the campaign. He didn’t have a lead at any point in the primary season, even though Reagan wrapped it all up pretty early with a hugely impressive win. People doubted Reagan on many counts, and Reagan pretty much had to prove to the country that he wasn’t crazy, and that he wouldn’t lead the country into some disastrous path they had feared ever since Goldwater’s 1964 campaign. He did, and the rest is history. Obama is way ahead of Reagan’s 1980 challenge, so that’s a good sign.
[...] On the other hand, Eunomia has commented on both polls, but only to tell us the bump is inconsequential- something the tepid response by bloggers would seem to make obvious. Duly noted. [...]