Bump Bump

Bill Clinton was clearly fantastic last night. Deval Patrick and Michelle Obama were great the night before. My guess is that Obama will be very good if not great tonight. There are also some indications the jobs report due out tomorrow morning will be decent at worst and possibly quite good.

So, what will it mean? Will Obama get the bounce that Romney seems not to have gotten?

I don't know but, if forced to guess, I think he will get a small bump ... a muted bump. David Plouffe made the case today that the campaign is not expecting a bump. That was at least partly his effort to lower expectations of those excited by Clinton's speech. But there is some truth in his explanation. Much of the electorate is locked in. Also, there are simply less people watching than we've seen in the past. Instead, what people see is the media reviews the next day. And there, they'll see Fox panning it and MSNBC saying it was better than the sermon on the mount. They'll see what they want to see.

All of that is my guess. But, if I'm right, it is not all that bad for Obama. He's winning right now. If the conventions pass with little or no movement, Romney will have missed an opportunity to change the dynamic of the race and I think he needs that dynamic to change. There will be more opportunities but not too many of them. It matters that he's missed one here.