  Remember George W. Bush's "fuzzy math? " A few Dems are breaking that out to prove that their convention wasn't the flop it looked like. My friend Pedro (see the comment on "Kerry's convention thud") went medieval on my buttocks for suggesting the Democrats' shindig went over like a whore at the parish picnic.
I will address his points in the order he makes them: 1) No journalist complains about not being spoon-fed the news. The problem with conventions is that their only purpose is to spoon-feed news to the media, in supersized commodities. That's exactly what makes them not news, but advertising. And I've never even been to a Georgetown cocktail party. 2) Pedro is being very generous as describing anything in Kerry's speech as a "principle. " Sentences that begin "I will not" do not count; they say nothing about how he will govern. His critique of the war was good but somehow never mentioned that he voted for it, let alone why, so we're still left guessing if he believes what he said about making decisions of war and peace. To summarize the rest: He's in favor of jobs, health care, old people and puppies (OK, I made that one up). 3) It matters not what George Will, Brit Hume or I think of the speech; it matters that it did nothing, Pedro's Web sites notwithstanding, to move Kerry's poll numbers up.
If he gained support in some states after the convention, that means he lost support elsewhere, because I have yet to see a national poll, based on likely voters, registered voters, adults, Belgians or whatever, that showed a statistically significant bounce for Kerry. Yes, Bush's poll numbers are horrendous, and got worse after the convention — which I noted in my original column. That only makes it sadder that Kerry has such a small lead. (For the record: In the week after the convention, he was up 3 points by AP/Ipsos, tied by Marist College, up 6 by ABC/Washington Post, up 5 by CBS News and down 4 by CNN/USA Today/Gallup.
The numbers are a little better if you exclude Nader, but that's less realistic and still doesn't get him more than a 6 point lead in any poll. ) A real candidate would be up by 10 points and pulling away. 4) Finally, about my biases. They're clear to most people who know me, but so there's no confusion, I will vote for Kerry and November, and I predict he will win.
Out of the six major Democratic candidates for president, he was my sixth-favorite, partly because I thought he would be as inept a campaigner as he has proven to be (although mostly because of his lack of a position on the war). I criticize him in the same spirit that baseball fans criticize a manager when their team isn't winning enough. You don't stop rooting for the team; you just wish they'd do better. Since the Iowa caucuses, I've been consistent in wishing the Democrats would do better. 
