McCain Campaign Predicts Huge Post-Convention Bump for Obama

John McCain’s presidential campaign, playing an aggressive version of the expectations game, circulated a campaign memo predicting Barack Obama will get a nearly 15-point bump in the opinion polls as a result of next week’s Democratic Convention. The memo comes as Obama kept the country — and the increasingly frenzied media — in the dark about who he had picked as his vice presidential candidate. The McCain campaign already is looking at ways to steal some of Obama’s spotlight in the coming week, with a plan for instant responses to speeches by Obama and his supporters. Even so, McCain aides are predicting that Obama’s short-term success could rival that of Bill Clinton’s, who got a 16-point bump in the polls after he was named the Democrat’s nominee at the 1992 convention in New York. “Barack Obama is more similarly situated to Bill Clinton in 1992 than any other candidate in recent history,” Sarah Simmons, a director of  ... (link)