I think those of us who have expressed skepticism about the results of the Time and Newsweek polls can consider ourselves vindicated. The new Gallup poll, conducted entirely after the GOP convention and therefore the first poll that truly measures Bush's bounce, shows Bush with a very modest bounce indeed: 2 points, whether you look at RVs or LVs. His support among RVs has risen from 47 percent before to 49 percent after the convention, so that he now leads Kerry by a single point (49-48) rather than trailing by a point.

But that's it. Contrast Bush's 49-48 lead among RVs in this poll to Time's 50-42 Bush lead and, especially, Newsweek's 54-43 Bush lead in the same matchup. Quite a difference.

Note also that Bush's 2 point bounce from his convention (which, remember, is defined as the change in a candidate's level of support, not in margin) is the worst ever received by an incumbent president, regardless of party, and the worst ever received by a Republican candidate, whether incumbent or not (see this Gallup analysis for all the relevant historical data). In 2000, Bush received an 8 point bounce. And even his hapless father received a 5 point bounce in 1992.

So that's the big story, right--Bush got a disappointingly small bounce and the earlier Time/Newsweek polls got it wrong about the bounce and how well Bush is doing. Nope, not if you're writing stories at USA Today. You dasn't contravene the current CW about the campaign (Bush surges ahead!) no matter what your own data says.

That's why we get a story like this one, "Bush leads Kerry by 7 points", which prominently features the LV results (where Bush does have a 7 point lead) and resolutely refuses to dwell on Bush's historically poor result from his convention or on his almost non-existent lead among RVs.

Instead, the article goes on to discuss some results from the poll that look pretty good for Bush and, of course, allow Matthew Dowd to spin the poll's results in the GOP's direction.

As usual, of course, Dowd does a pretty good job of spnning the poll (we gained more than we expected!), which is then followed by a very weak reply from Mark Mellman where he essentially says the GOP's gains from the convention will fade. That's not the right reply. The right reply is what gains and and how very disappointed the GOP must be in their historically poor performance.

But this is a persistent problem: Dowd and the people behind him relentlessly spin every poll and feed journalists various mini-analyses (can we call them "analysisoids"?) that purport to show how great Bush is doing relative to expectations, historical patterns, etc. and how bogus any poll is that shows Kerry doing well. Where are the Democrats on this one? The occasional lame quote from Mellman is not enough to outgun Dowd in this particular part of the political debate.

I don't know whether Mellman just can't matchup with Dowd in this department or if he simply doesn't have the time to come up with good stuff or whether he needs a team of people monitoring the polls and coming up with analysisoids that he (or someone) can then retail to the media. Whatever the problem, it's time the Democrats found a solution so that Dowd no longer has this particular field all to himself.

End of rant. Let me mention a few other results from the Gallup poll that suggest the relative ineffectiveness of the GOP convention.

Bush's acceptance speech, which the media fawned over so ostentatiously, was not rated any better by the public than was Kerry's--in fact, it received slightly worse ratings. Kerry's acceptance speech was rated excellent by 25 percent and good by 27 percent; Bush's was rated excellent by 22 percent and good by 27 percent.

In terms of whether the Republican convention made voters more or less likely to vote for Bush--the real point of the convention after all--there were almost as many saying the convention made them less likely to vote for Bush (38 percent) as said it made them more likely (41 percent).

This is actually quite a poor performance. The Democratic convention this year had a substantially better 44 percent more likely/30 percent less likely split. In fact, looking back to 1984, which is as far back as Gallup supplies data, no candidate has ever had a more likely to vote for/less likely to vote for split even close to as bad as Bush's this year.

Well, what about the tone of the convention? Do voters think the Republicans got that one right? Nope. Just 39 percent think the GOP maintained the right balance between criticizing the Democrats and saying positive things about themselves, compared to 50 percent who think they spent too much time criticizing the Democrats. By contrast, in 2000, 45 percent thought the GOP maintained the right balance in their convention, compared to 38 percent who thought they spent too much time criticizing.

But this unfavorable judgement on tone for the GOP this year is not without precedent. In 1992, just 26 percent thought the Republicans maintained the right balance in their convention, compared to 56 percent who thought they spent too much time criticizing.

Sounds like W is going down the same road trod by his father. Let's hope it produces the same result on election day.