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I realize that political polls this far out from an election are not very useful in determining the outcome of the election. However I do think that the resent results are fairly interesting when coupled with viewership for the conventions. The recent USA Today/Gallup poll has Republican John McCain leading Democrat Barack Obama by 54%-44% among registered voters. Couple this with the fact that the Republican Convention had a higher viewership then the Democrat Convention and there may be some momentum building for John McCain. The Republican Convention was the most viewed convention in the history of conventions. This kind of flies in the face of common thought.



Everyone is saying that Barack Obama is the media darling and that he is captivating the Americans attention. However the statistics tell another story, at least with convention viewership. The other point to take into consideration is that Barack Obama did not get much of a bump from his convention. This can be attributed to John McCain announcing his pick for Vice President the day after the Democratic Convention ended. Any bump that Obama would have received was overlooked by the excitement of a Vice Presidential pick. This was smart planning on the part of John McCain’s campaign and shows the huge advantage you receive for having the second convention.
Nominating conventions are big pep rallies that are designed for momentum building and to drive message home to the American viewing public. No longer are they used as they were indented; to actually nominate and choose a presidential candidate. That was done months ago during the Primary season. None the less, the conventions are good for TV. In years past TV networks have balked at showing the conventions, they did not think viewership would be high enough and they would rather show reruns. However this year with such an energetic candidate in Barack Obama, viewership increased and the TV networks, especially the cable news shows received a huge boost in viewership.
The guess only time will tell whether the bump John McCain has received is real or just a short term fascination with his VP pick.