Bush camp hits ground running with a bounce

NEW YORK — Republicans are leaving here this morning fired up and eager to see the Bush-Cheney ticket hit the road to turn the momentum built by the four-day convention into victory.

Even before President Bush closed the show by formally accepting the Republican nomination last night, a Rasmussen daily tracking poll had already given him a bounce.

In the head-to-head matchup with Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Mr. Bush was the preference of 49 percent of likely voters yesterday, with 45 percent for Mr. Kerry.

It was the first time the president had reached the 49 percent mark in the poll since Mr. Kerry all but wrapped up his party’s nomination in March, and the first time Mr. Bush had enjoyed a four-point lead since late April.

Mr. Bush left New York immediately after his speech for Scranton, Pa., so, according to his campaign, he could wake up in a swing state.

Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said Pennsylvania, with 21 electoral votes, is now one major Democratic state whose conservative, blue-collar pro-life voters can be brought into the president’s column and that conservative Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who fired up the convention Wednesday night with his speech attacking Mr. Kerry and his own party, is the ideal surrogate to help make that happen.

“In Pennsylvania, there are always two groups who swing back and forth: socially conservative voters in the northwest and southwest, and moderates in the Philadelphia suburbs,” he said. “In both places, we will make the case for the president’s leadership in the war on terror and the economy.”

After this morning’s rally, Mr. Bush jets off to Milwaukee for another event in the afternoon and closes the day with a stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Tomorrow, he visits Cleveland and Lake County in Ohio and Erie, Pa., and wraps up the weekend at a rally Sunday in Parkersburg, W.Va.

Vice President Dick Cheney heads out west for rallies today in Oregon and Nevada and tomorrow in New Mexico and Georgia.

While the Bush campaign has officially declared that it expects no boost in the polls out of this convention — just as Mr. Kerry didn’t get one in July — political consultants close to the campaign predict a bounce in the neighborhood of 4 percent.

One point of agreement among Bush campaign advisers, outside consultants and pollsters is that although the convention here went exceptionally well for Mr. Bush, the vast majority of viewers had already made their choice.

“The majority watching on television had already made up their minds,” said Texas delegate Richard H. McBride, a campaign consultant from Austin. “Joe Six-pack wasn’t watching, so we’ll get a little bounce.”

“The problem is that hard-core undecided voters — now about 9 percent of likely voters — were not watching, not paying attention,” pollster John Zogby said.

“But it’s been a good couple of weeks for the president, especially for doing damage to Kerry and getting his own numbers up,” said Mr. Zogby, who saw Mr. Kerry drop and Mr. Bush rise for a total nine percentage-point swing in the incumbent’s favor.

A crucial indicator of how the campaign is going is how well each side is solidifying its own voter base. Turning out a percentage point or two more of Republican voters will do more to help Mr. Bush triumph than gaining a few more points among the far smaller pool of undecided voters.

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