Maybe it was the ‘shove it’ incident or the NASA bunny suit gaffe preceding the recently concluded Democratic National convention. Maybe it was the four-day bait-and-switch show itself. Or it just might be candidate John F. Kerry.

Whatever the cause, Democrats are faced with an embarrassing fact: Kerry, who began the week two to four points ahead of President Bush in the polls, received little or none of the projected post-convention bounce and even lost ground according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll released on Sunday.

To find a precedent for a disaster of this magnitude, one must go back over 30 years to 1972 when George McGovern lost three points after his convention and went on to a crushing electoral defeat by another Republican war-time incumbent.

Polls and the American electorate being what they are, these numbers are not etched in stone and will probably change. Still, Kerry backers in the media are already at work with fingers poised in the proverbial dike to staunch what could be a tidal wave of bad news.

One attempt was USA Today’s reportage of their own poll. Trying to spin a silver lining out of it all, they resorted to quoting a competing Newsweek poll--the equivalent of Macy’s telling Gimbels--that showed a four-point convention gain for the Dems while noting that was the smallest in that poll’s history.

Another came moments after Wolf Blitzer announced the Gallup numbers on Late Edition Sunday afternoon. In an interview with pundit Bill Schneider, the host asked if the reason for Kerry’s poor showing was “because the country basically had already made up their mind,” before the convention. Schneider’s reply?

Looks like they had a point. What we see showing is before the convention the Democrats were hugely enthusiastic about voting…they already had their bounce. But what really changed is that the Republicans, the Bush voters went way up in enthusiasm gaining eight points so it looks like, yes, the convention rallied voters but it rallied Republicans more than Democrats.

The Democrats’ failure to ratchet up enthusiasm for their party during its showcase event cannot be so easily dismissed by saying people have already made their choice. The truth is, that apart from the slick production and even slicker performances by the speakers, there was much reason for confusion emanating from Beantown.

After months of throwing red meat to their left-leaning base, they suddenly made a whiplash turn to the center of the political spectrum. The delegates themselves, the great majority of whom opposed many official party planks--including support for the Iraq War-- nonetheless amazingly approved all of them.

Omitted from mention in the platform itself were Democratic staples such as partial-birth abortion, gay marriage, capital punishment and the Kyoto Treaty. Such is the desperation to beat Bush that even hardcore lefties coalesced around this vision of the one (or is it two?) Americas so embraced by their ticket. This may explain the confusion that seems to be reflected in the poor poll numbers so far. Voters don’t seem to recognize this new flag-waving version of the party and the time to re-re-introduce their candidate is running out.

Not a great place to be considering that the Bushies have barely fired a shot in a week and that the Kerry campaign must ration their August ad spending due to budgetary constraints. The GOP meanwhile, is sitting on a huge pile of cash and plans to launch a ton of ads in the weeks leading up to their own confab in the Big Apple next month.

Of course there is a chance that the Republicans will similarly stumble at their convention by totally reversing or ignoring their long-held positions, shafting their base or having the President dress up like a Teletubby. But don’t count on it.

Lisa Fabrizio