THE BOUNCE

Posted at 5:57 a.m. ET

The Wall Street Journal takes a very pragmatic look at a word you'll be hearing constantly this week - bounce.  It has a revered place in politics.  Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute has studied the subject:

A new study by Ms. Bowman finds that, generally, bounces have "tended in the past to evaporate very quickly." Even more discouraging, Barry Goldwater, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis all had higher bounces than their opponents but ended up losing in November. Jimmy Carter had a higher bounce than Ronald Reagan in 1980. He lost.

Still, campaign staffs are paid to orchestrate a succession of bounces all the way to Election Day. This year presents special challenges. Each party's veep announcements and conventions will be happening in almost overlapping news cycles. Plus, cautions Ms. Bowman, the American people "have been paying a lot of attention to the Olympics and may want to turn off the television set for a week."

Polling may be difficult at times:

Pollsters also face their own headaches this year. Kathy Frankovic, who runs polling for CBS News, notes that there'll be only a "three-day gap between the two conventions," separated by the Labor Day weekend. "Polling over Labor Day Weekend is always a problem. We confront more than the usual number of people who don't respond or can't respond. People are away from their homes, heading back from summer vacation, or preparing their children for the start of the school year."

It's even harder on election day, Kathy.  Then you'll see a lot of people who haven't lived on this Earth for years turning up at the polls in places like Chicago and St. Louis. 

And their votes will be counted, and counted, and...

August 25, 2008.