16-point bounce in 1992?  I don't recall the convention as I was pretty young but I can only imagine how smoothly the convention had to go for Clinton to get 16 fricking points.

If we aren't leading by at the very least twelve points in the gallup daily tracking or Obama isn't at 52% by the end of next thursday, I'll be really worried.  There's no excuse to not have a double digit lead coming out of the convention even though it may dissipate a little bit with the pub's convention coming up shortly.

If he puts clinton on the ticket he would get a bounce .

9/11 remembrance and the memorials are coming up and the mccain convention , odds are if Obama doesn't do something dramatic at the convention or debates , the trajectory seem to suggest we are heading to a period where national security would be at the top or in the press.

Who that benefits is anyone's guess

C'mon, you don't think Obama is going to gain five-six points if he names Tom Daschle as his running mate as you predicted last night?

Let's hope for a bounce because like Kerry in 2004, this is shaping up to be another August to forget.  

Like Bush did in 2004, Obama is allowing McCain to drive the narrative during the month of August.  

We can't wait until late September or October to drive home what this campaign is about:  "the economy stupid."  

Kerry received a "bounce" of -1?  Jeez.  I think I suppressed the bad memories of his campaign.

That is why I think the VP selection is VERY important!...for both sides!

I think the amount of the bounce will DEPEND heavily on the level of excitement surrounding the VP selection.    

The VP candidate will get PRIME-TIME on all broadcast channels and the 24/7 cable new network coverage next week during his/her speech at the Convention.  What perception do we want to give the American people?  Do we want to give them a dull telepromter fake speech when Kathleen Sibelius put millions do sleep during the SOTU.....OR.....do we want a passionate speech given by Hillary Clinton that will unite our party.

I thought a 6 point bounce was considered significant not 4?

A dead cat bounce is a term used by traders in the finance industry to describe a pattern wherein a spectacular decline in the price of a stock is immediately followed by a moderate and temporary rise before resuming its downward movement, with the connotation that the rise was not an indication of improving circumstances in the fundamentals of the stock. It is derived from the notion that

"even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height".

Usually, it seems there is a week off between the conventions.  This time, all the post Dem Convention polling will be done DURING the GOP convention.

I'm not sure I like the timing, the least of reasons being that it makes this tough to judge.

And Obama will get a bounce in the poll averages when the outlier Zogby poll of today drops out of the average, just as he did when the outlier USA Today/Gallup LV one dropped out of the average.

Most serious poll analysts take out the top and bottom poll and then analyze from there. If you don't, the outliers have too much of an impact.

NBC/WSJ and CBS/NYT have Obama up 3. The trackers have Obama up 2 or 3.  I even got polled by Rasmussen last night! It was great to report that a white, Southern regular churchgoer enthusiastically supports Obama and despises John McCain.

Jerome, the range of post-Convention bounces is NOT really "all over the map for Democrats" as you say. There are three or four exceptional years that depress our average (and one very good year).

I'm old enough to recall them all, alas.

In 1964, actually, nothing bad happened, and I must assume the small bounce was due to the fact that almost everyone had already decided to support LBJ for re-election, less than a year after he had become President when JFK was assassinated.

In 1968, the Democratic Convention came just months after first Martin Luther King and then Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, and many cities had experienced riots and destruction. The Convention itself was no lovefest, because of the bitterly divisive issue of the Vietnam War pitting Gene McCarthy's supporters and Bobby Kennedy's delegates against the loyalists supporting VP Hubert Humphrey. Even worse then was the police riot outside the Convention Hall, when Mayor Daley's cops attacked demonstrators and diverted attention from the fractious Democrats inside to the law-and-order problems outside.

In 1972, the divisions over the war and the nomination were still bitter. The Convention was tied up in fierce delegate battles over the platform and/or rules for the selection of delegates for future conventions. The commotion went on for hours and hours, delaying George McGovern's acceptance speech until well after midnight. Then within a couple of weeks, the news broke that the VP nominee Sen Eagleton had forgot to remember to tell the McGovern vetters about his time in the mental hospital including shock treatment for severe depression.

In 2004, Kerry announced his choice of Edwards almost a month in advance of the Convention, and got a nice bounce from that news, but perhaps at the cost of making the Convention less newsy or interesting. Meanwhile the hours of network coverage of the conventions had been cut back to a new low. The convention itself took place in Boston, probably not a good choice for a party always described in Middle America by its opponents as being Northeastern elitists.

The one very good bounce in 1992 came after the defeat in 1988, and everyone was hoping that the results in '92 would be different. In 1988, Jesse Jackson had continued his campaign all the way to the Convention, and when Dukakis was nominated, he brought his VP choice on stage with him, and then brought on Jesse Jackson, too!!! The three of them hand in hand was the final, dominant image from the convention and may have paved the way for the devastatingly effective racist attacks on Dukakis of the Willie Horton ads. But the '92 convention was much more tightly scripted and controlled, with Clinton's Hollywood friends shaping the visuals to reintroduce to the nation a not-well-known governor of a small state. And the choice of Al Gore as VP was very popular as well; he had lost to Dukakis, Jackson, and the other contenders in '88, but he had made a good impression and was well liked. Even the notion of picking a very similar young moderate Southerner from a neighboring state as VP seemed fresh and promised moderate change.

Backing out the five exceptional years leaves a range of 5 to 10%, or an average of 8%, and raises the bar of expectations for this year's Convention.

Well, in '08, the Convention is in Denver, not Boston, and that's all good; the visuals should be great. The conclusion at the outdoor stadium will also be newsy and fresh looking with great images from a speech from a very effective orator. With any luck on the VP thing we could get that 5 to 10% bounce again and put this thing away.