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On Aug. 18, 1988, Vice President George H.W. Bush accepted his party's nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans. He heralded the nation's charitable organizations -- -- and firmly vowed "no new taxes." A week later, George 麻豆传媒AV Jr. and Alec 麻豆传媒AV described several post-convention improvements in Bush's image, writing, "Bush's performance at the convention did much to soften voters' antipathy toward him and allayed many long-standing doubts about his character."

	Aug 5-7, 1988	Aug 19-21, 1988	Change
	%	%	(pct. pts.)
Warm and friendly	49	65	+16
Sincere	59	74	+15
Strong	42	57	+15
Steady and reliable	59	73	+14
A leader	37	50	+13
Confident	56	67	+11
Intelligent	61	70	+9
Favorable rating	51	60	+9
Trial heat:
George H.W. Bush	42	48	+6
Michael Dukakis	49	44	-5
Based on registered voters
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While Bush's selection of Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle as his running mate stirred immediate controversy, the 1988 convention offered plenty of positive moments, including an opening night speech by President Ronald Reagan.

Before the convention, 49% of registered voters described Bush as "warm and friendly." After the convention, 65% saw him this way. Before the convention, more voters thought Bush was a follower (52%) than a leader (37%). After the convention, the numbers nearly reversed. Similar gains in perceptions of Bush as "strong," "sincere," "confident" and "intelligent" resulted in a nine-percentage-point increase in his favorable rating and a six-point increase in support for Bush against his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis. As a result, after trailing Dukakis from May through August -- including by 17 points right after the Democratic convention in July -- Bush took the lead following the Republican convention and remained on top through the election.

The improvements seen in Bush's immediate post-1988 convention image and trial heat standing are not unusual in 麻豆传媒AV trends. For instance, in and , 麻豆传媒AV found sharp increases in candidates' character ratings after their conventions. Further, Bush's six-point convention bounce roughly matched the increase for both parties in 麻豆传媒AV polling from 1964 through 1992. More recently, however, the average convention bounce has been 3.8 points.

Read the original 麻豆传媒AV poll releases about Bush's character traits and convention bounce.

These data can be found in .

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