Can You Bounce Wit Me, Bounce Wit Me, Wit Me Wit Me?

Truth be told, McCain's bounce is looking larger than I anticipated.  But in all of the post-convention polling so far, McCain/Palin is tied or ahead.  Gallup shows a 6-point bounce, Hotline/FD shows a 9-point bounce, Rasmussen shows a 7-point bounce, and CNN shows a 1-point bounce. 

I wouldn't get too terribly excited about the USA Today/Gallup poll showing McCain up 10.  Right now that is looking like a clear outlier.  Regardless, it is nice to see McCain up for a change.  My guess is that over the next couple of days we'll see this settle down somewhat.  But I don't think we'll settle back to a 2-3 point Obama win.  Polls will probably show things bouncing around a tie.  The Republican base is finally truly energized, the first time this has happened in a long, long time.

And we're starting to see a similar effect in other polling.  Democratic polling firm PPP shows Obama up only one in Michigan, as opposed to being up three and nine in the last couple of iterations of the poll.

We also see evidence for something I speculated about yesterday -- that there might be a downticket effect for Republicans as the base becomes energized.  Ted Stevens is just down three points in Alaska, a fourteen-point bounce for Senator Pork Barrel.

And in House races, we're starting to see a similar trend.  In polling taking in MO-09, a southern-accented open seat of the sort that Democrats have been picking up left and right lately, the GOP candidate has a twelve-point lead.  And in something of a "reverse bounce," a poll taken during the Democratic convention shows Republican Jay Love leading Bobby Bright 56-39% in AL-02.  I don't think Bright was really looking forward to having the spotlight on Obama.

It ain't over yet folks.  Not by a long shot.