Challengers Need Big Leads

I played around some last night with the challengers’-post-convention-Gallup-Poll-numbers chart the Bush website put out last weekend, and I found something that probably isn’t all that Earth-shattering, but is still worthy of note.

Recently Matt Dowd, Bush’s pollster, cited that since 1964 no challenger who has trailed in the Gallup survey immediately after his convention has ever gone on to win in November. And, of course, that poll this time showed John Kerry six points behind (51%-45%).

What I did was add a column showing the challengers’ respective final margins in November compared to their post-convention Gallup standing. And what I found was that with the lone exception of Barry Goldwater, every challenger in the last forty years has lost ground in the general campaign – an average of about eight percentage points, led by Jimmy Carter’s thirty point plunge (barely hanging on to defeat President Ford) and Bill Clinton’s seventeen-point plummet versus Bush41.

Bob Dole’s single-point fall in 1996 is doubtless more relevant to today’s electorate, but I found myself thinking about 1992 from this alternative angle. Bush the father had everything going against him – Ross Perot, a sluggish economy, a fractured base, no credibility after having broken his no-new-taxes pledge, running on a personal character/”Whom do you trust?” theme that was nonsensical in light of the aforementioned broken promise, and an opponent that we now know was arguably the greatest campaigner and propagandist in American history – and yet he managed to catch Clinton in the polls on the Friday before the election. He slipped back over that final weekend (when his campaign inexplicably ran no ads while the Clintonoids ran a last-minute ad blitz), but given another two weeks, GHWB would, I’m convinced, have had his second term.

Fast forward to now. Bush the son has no broken promises dogging him; he has no third candidate cutting into his base; that base is rock solid and highly energized; he’s facing Michael Dukakis’ first officer, who has amply demonstrated that he’s no Bill Clinton.

There are also grudging lib articles like the following from Slate:

After last week's Democratic convention, I felt that John Kerry had become the favorite in the presidential race. Now, after only two days with President Bush, I'm not so sure. He's that good [my emphasis]. Unlike many people, I'm not threatened by the President's religious rhetoric. It must be the Midwestern Catholic in me. Like the people in the audience, I find it familiar and comforting. I can see why so many people believe the President is ‘one of us,’ no matter how rich or how elite his background. And I can see that Kerry will have a tough time besting Bush in all three debates.

And there will, of course, be the GOP convention, where luminaries such as Ah-nuld, Rudy, and “Sailor,” should draw quite a few more viewers than the Clintons, Al Gore, and Howie Dean, and the President will get his time in the national spotlight to deliver what hopefully will be a both a spirited, long-awaited rebuttal of his moronic critics and a rousing proclamation of his second term vision – providing he has that level of “fire in the belly.”

After the past year and half of unanswered opposition acrimony, it’s difficult to see where that fire is, much less where it’ll come from. But maybe I’ve just finally fallen prey to “misunderestimating” Mr. Bush myself. The next few weeks will provide the answers.

The numbers on Labor Day will tell the tale…and I’ll leave the details for convention week.