RNC Sets Expectations For McCain's Polling Standing

Later today, the Republican National Committee plans to send Jan van Lohuizen's latest polling memo to its members.

Read it before they do -- here.

The message: don't be alarmed by fluidity in the polling. Indeed, it's an article of faith within the GOP that when the Democratic nomination is settled, McCain's standing will drop and the Democrats' standing will rise -- at least until the conventions begin.

Van Lohuizen writes:

When a candidate gets good news their numbers increase, and when it’s bad news or no news their numbers drop. We saw this occur recently. When Barack Obama had to deal with the Reverend Wright story his numbers dropped. At the same time, when Senator Clinton was confronted with her ‘sniper’ tale, her numbers also dropped, and Senator McCain led
both Democrats in public polls. Since that time, with the media focused almost
exclusively on the other side, Senator McCain’s numbers have slipped a bit and the race
has tightened. We have seen this in public polling as well as the polling we conduct for
the RNC.

Both candidates, he writes, ought to get bumps out of their conventions:

As you may recall, the 2004 bounce was better and longer lasting for our convention than for the Democratic convention. Because it was so late, the GOP convention set up President Bush for a lead that lasted through the debates. This year the Democrats will have a later convention, but if their nomination is not settled, seating fights and other sources of
contention could very well make for no bounce at all (or, if such a thing exists, a negative
bounce).