Gallup says that the convention cost Kerry support:

In the survey, taken Friday and Saturday, the Democratic ticket of Kerry and John Edwards trailed the Republican ticket of Bush and Dick Cheney 50% to 46% among likely voters, with independent candidate Ralph Nader at 2%.

Before the convention, the two were essentially tied, with Kerry at 47%, Bush at 46%.

The change in support was within the poll’s margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points in the sample of 763 likely voters. But it was nonetheless a stunning result, the first time in the Gallup Poll since the 1972 Democratic convention that a candidate seemed to lose ground at his convention.

That may be because there are some other similarities with the 1972 Democratic convention.

The really bad news is that this was a partial weekend poll, which usually tend to favor Democrats (they seem to be home more for surveying on the weekends than Republicans).

Speaking of hamsters, there’s some pretty phunny photoshopping here. I can’t decide which I like better: “Saving Private Hamster” or the operating room scene with the bunny suit.