Dowd: Whooaaah There, Expectations

The Republican National Committee is distributing a memo from Bush '04 strategist/RNC senior adviser Matthew Dowd cautioning against any super-high expectations for a post-SOTU bounce.

(Is he lowering expectations? Setting them realistically??

Dowd counsels Bush fans to be "mindful" of the chimeric post-SOTU bounce storyline.

Dowd: "While all of us would welcome increased public approval, the history (both recent and the last 50 years) of poll movement around this event shows quite a different story."

He continues: "In looking at poll movement before and after State of the Union addresses, the average over the last fifty years is actually a slight drop (-0.2%). President Bush's average change is also a drop (-0.4%). Only one of his SOTU addresses showed positive movement (2005), which is likely attributed to the intervening events of the 2005 Inaugural and January 2005 Iraqi elections. Even the "Great Communicator" President Ronald Reagan's average poll movement after State of the Union addresses was negative (-2.6%), and in fact Reagan only had one SOTU speech with positive poll movement!" [MARC AMBINDER]