Iowa Electronic Market, 8/22/96
	Vote Share			Winner-Takes-All
	Dole	Clinton		Dole	Clinton
Open	47.5%	53.3%		28.8%	69.8%
Close	47.5%	53.3%		28.2%	71.1%
Pundits' Index
Clinton: 69 percent, down 6 from last week Dole: 31 percent, up 7 from last week Perot: 0 percent, down 1 from last week

The polls have tightened, the GOP has bounced back in the Iowa market, and among the pundits, the Dole rally roars on. Dole's speech at the Republican Convention impressed most print commentators, and Newsweek's subsequent poll--suggesting a "dead heat"--consumed the weekend chat shows. "The rehabilitation of Bob Dole has just been fantastic," glowed Bob Novak. Weekend trading in the Iowa market swamped previous records: More than 5,500 Dole shares and 3,100 Clinton shares changed hands. Dole's stock surged after he picked Kemp, cooled off as the convention wore on, then got hot again after Dole gave his speech and his poll numbers improved. Dole's shares in the Winner-Take-All market were at 25.5 before he announced Kemp; now he's at 30.3.

But pundits were also hedging their bets. Discounting the Newsweek survey, NBC's Jim Miklaszewski scoffed, "Everybody considers this to be somewhat of an anomaly. ... Nobody thinks it's closed to a dead heat yet." Fred Barnes cautioned that the convention had merely propelled Dole from "a 5 percent chance of winning the presidency to about a 25 or 30 percent chance." Most analysts wagered that Clinton would recover a double-digit lead by Labor Day. The bottom-line consensus is that Dole still faces an "uphill" contest, but he has gotten back into the game and erased fears of a blowout.

The speech: The pundits' low expectations inflated Dole's competent convention address into a pleasant surprise. William Safire summarized the official verdict: "Dole's speech was not a home run, but a triple from a hitter doubters thought could not reach first base."

Kemp: The accolades continued. Al Hunt called him "the most electrifying and unifying choice that I have seen in 25 years of covering American politics." Kemp-worship among liberal chat-show panelists grew so effusive that their perplexed right-leaning colleagues stepped in to remind them that Kemp supports tax cuts for the wealthy. Pundits praised the ticket's ever-increasing "chemistry," with Kemp giving Dole a "transfusion" of joy and confidence. This week's ubiquitous Shrewd Observation was that Dole's marriage to Kemp frustrates Democrats' hopes of pairing Dole with Gingrich. But the pundits refuse to believe Kemp can provide so much benefit without a price. Hence the "loose cannon" theory persists. "Between now and Nov. 3, he's going shoot his mouth off in some way that's going to embarrass Dole," predicted Newsweek 's Evan Thomas.

Elizabeth Dole: The pundits unanimously pronounced her "the star of the convention," and asserted that she had forever changed the nature of political conventions by leaving the podium to stroll among the audience. "Elizabeth Dole's performance at the Republican Convention was one of the great tour[s] de force I've ever seen in American politics," declared Democratic consultant Bob Shrum. Commentators agreed that she had "raised the bar" for Hillary Clinton at the Democratic Convention, and they chatted at length about how the first lady might one-up her.

The pundits are skeptical that Dole's new supporters will stick through the Democrats' propaganda opportunity next week. "If the president now gets a bounce of 10 or 12 points, we're right back where we started," concluded Sam Donaldson. Bill Kristol worried that the GOP's slick convention had failed to supply the rationale for a Dole presidency.

Perot: His victory in last week's Reform Party balloting surprised no one. Instead, the pundits abandoned their remaining pretense of taking him seriously, citing his high negative ratings, the miserable 5 percent turnout in the nomination voting (50,000 ballots), the party's 3 percent showing in the Newsweek poll, Dole's revival as a credible option for undecided voters, and the traditional tendency of Americans to abandon third-party and independent candidates as Election Day approaches.

--William Saletan

William Saletan covers politics for several magazines and is the author of a forthcoming book on the politics of abortion.