As I indicated in my last post, there's no use in looking at national polls that include Ralph Nader because the consumer activist isn't even going to be on half of the nation's ballots. Accordingly, I'm not even going to look at the new poll from Time (or even provide a link here) because it's ridiculous to have Nader on the poll but not Michael Badnarik (Libertarian), Michael Peroutka (Constitution) and David Cobb (Green)--who will all appear on ballots in many more states than Nader--in the poll as well.

There is a new poll out from Newsweek that is usable, however, as it includes Registered voters and doesn't include Mr. Nader. Here's what they have to say:

In a two-way trial without the Nader ticket, among registered voters, Bush/Cheney are ahead of Kerry/Edwards 50 to 45 percent, with five percent of registered voters undecided. One week ago in the two-way race, Bush/Cheney were ahead of Kerry/Edwards 54 to 43 percent with three percent undecided [emphasis added].

It appears as though Bush's so-called "convention bounce" isn't holding whatsoever, and just like the SBVf"T" ads did to Kerry, the controversy over his TANG service is withering away the American people's trust in him (Newsweek says the electorate is split 42-42 over Bush's service--or lack thereof). This is not a good poll for the President at all as it shows that his semi-surge in the polls was not in fact real.

I suppose the real question is if the media will be as forceful with a "Bush's post-convention support disappears fast" story as they were with the "Bush surges" story...