That didn’t take long.  Three days after the end of the convention and the supposedly historic speech given by Barack Obama, Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll puts him back to where he was before the convention started.  The Republican convention starts tomorrow, and the Democrat has already started backwards:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday—the day before the Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin—shows Barack Obama ahead of John McCain by three percentage points both with and without leaners. That’s exactly the same edge Obama enjoyed a week ago on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. …

There have been significant changes in perception of John McCain in the two days of polling since he named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Since then, 49% of Republicans voice a Very Favorable opinion of McCain. That’s up six percentage points from 43% just before the announcement. Also, 64% of unaffiliated voters now give positive reviews to McCain, up ten points since naming his running mate.

There has been little change in perceptions of Obama since his Thursday night speech and the Palin announcement.

Once again, the polling numbers show that the Obama speech was a dud.  Most of his bounce came from speeches given by Hillary and Bill Clinton, as they did their best to unify the party behind the nominee.  Obama had an opportunity to play for the center, but instead of sounding presidential and accommodating, he offered the same tired stump speech, the same Bush bashing, and the same vagueries as people heard — even if he did deliver it from a big stage with lots of fireworks.

After squandering a double-digit lead this summer, nothing Obama has done shows that he can make a comeback on his own.  He barely survived the primaries after taking the momentum from Hillary in February, and now he’s lost it to McCain.  The more America sees of Barack Obama, the more they appear to like John McCain, and now the Republicans have the opportunity to seize the momentumn for good this week.