Is there a correlation between fundraising numbers and site traffic for that month. In a world where candidates increasingly use online methods of raising money, the results prove interesting...

I have some relatives in Arizona, long-time rabid John McCain fans, who sometimes include me in their email chains. The last compared the taxes various individuals might pay, under Clinton and under Bush II; the point seemed to be that no one should vote Democratic, lest those policies not be continued.

I decided to try showing the bigger picture; what have the supply-side economic policies of the Bushes and Reagan, which McCain would continue, done to the US economy as a whole? I collected information, all ultimately from government figures, which graphically (Warning! IMAGES!) make that impact stunningly obvious, and I included links to my sources for further information.

This process had several good results for me. It gave me the satisfaction of proving out my belief that supply-side economics is nothing but collective cover for corporate kleptomaniacs (ahem!), it gave me links I can point inquiring people at, it pissed off my wingnut relatives to where they'll exclude me from their mass emailings, and it provided me with a blog entry (http://quarkscrew.wordpress.com <\blogwhore>) and my first DailyKos diary! ;)

I wanted to get a better look at what President Bush looks like to the nation, so I used the latest ABC News/Washington Post polling data to create an area chart (including a few notable events). There's only one thing I find more baffling than the series of exceptionally bad decisions this President has made: I cannot for the life of me understand how this man continues to generate unending support from such a vocal minority.

Two of the most common statistical graphics are pie charts and bar plot.  If you use some of the common spreadsheet packages, then the default graphs include 3 dimensional barplots (or histograms).  

These are bad graphs.

If you use them, you are, at best, not fully communicating, and, at worst, misrepresenting your data.  And if you see them (and you DO see them) you may be being lied to, or at least misled.

More on the flip, including examples and alternatives

If you have a blog and want to embed an updated graph of a Senate race, or other selected race, in a story or comment, pollster.com is offering some of their code. Embed it into your blog or comment and see real time, updated graphs of selected races. Go here to learn how.

Or a Category 5 storm.  Pick your metaphor.

Up front, the generic House ballot shows a building surge in support of Democrats.  Currently, the polls show an estimated Democratic support of 53%, with 38% for Republicans, for a Democratic margin of 15 points.  The change in the Democratic margin is shown below - after a dip following the September Security Scare, voters have dramatically increased their support for Democrats.

Click to enlarge.  Indicates the Democratic margin - zero means a tie.

Below the fold, the generic becomes specific, plus momentum in the Senate.  Come join and see the happy results!  And of course I have more graphs... cross-posted at MyDD.

Yes, the Republican Nightmare is coming to a city near you:  their base is (slowly) shrinking but the vast political middle of the country is waking up.  Fear is no longer working.  Everything 9/11 changed is changing back, and then some.

Pew's generic House ballot shows even `safe' Republicans are vulnerable.  People are voting on national, not local issues, and the top issue is Iraq.  Since 2002, major survey categories have swung towards the Democrats: moderates, women, and young folks.  These are amazing numbers - are moderates the Democrats' new base?

Click to enlarge.  Numbers show by how many points we're winning the group.

Join me below to see just how bad it is, get a boost of euphoria, and then harness that happiness and get back to work.  (And of course, I've got lots of graphs for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing.) Cross-posted on MyDD.

Based on the children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day heard here being read by the author, Judith Viorst.

They started September with the war on terror but now nobody mentions the war on terror and when they get out of bed each day they trip over the paper and it says by mistake another colleague did something illegal while the camera was running and they can tell it is going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month.

Click to enlarge.  Shows the number of stories (number published each day as recorded on Google News) for the phrases `war on terror' or `war on terrorism' was high at the beginning of September with Bush's coordinated media campaign, but died off quickly.  Much, much more below...

We've all watched as Bush's approval ratings hover in poisonous territory for almost a year, and wondered how much it mattered.  After all, Bush is not on the ballot this year.  Who cares about him?

Last week I showed that as Bush's approval ratings have gone down, so has the net favorability of the entire Republican party.  This time, we'll see just exactly how Bush's approval affects individual House contests.  To continue with the storm metaphor, looking at numbers only (not campaign funds, operations, and viability of opponents) the Republicans are extremely, extremely vulnerable.  Hurricane Bush is the worst thing in years for the Republican party, and the forecast is grim.

Click to enlarge.

Below, an explanation of the forecast, including discussions on Bush's approval in districts, voter motivation advantages, and exactly how Bush's approval relates to the performance of Republican candidates.  And lots of graphs, of course.  (Cross posted at MyDD.)

Bloggers have long used Google, and its various facets, to gather information. Despite Roves wishes, it is the Democrats who are taking advantage of the Internet, not Republicans. I mean who needs Google, or Blogging, when you have the NSA?

But I digress. I figured I would do some data mining of my own. Google offers many tools to the savvy sleuth who seeks the truth, but the tool I will explore today is Google Trends. With this new tool we can see what the world is searching for. This peek into what is on the minds of every day folks can be very telling.  Type a word into the box and Google Trends shows you, in chart form, the search levels for that term for the last 2 years. Type 2 words separated by a comma and you get a comparison chart.

Thusly:

Now that you have a handle on the possibilities lets jump right in....

Follow me...

(Bandwidth Alert)

2,500 US troops dead.

Zarqawi killed.

What does it all mean? Unfortunately, day-to-day reporting offers us an incomplete glimpse into what's going on in Iraq. One day things may sound like they are getting better. Other day, things seem much worse. To get a sense of where Iraq is one must examine data trends. Fortunately for us, icasualties.org has been keeping track of US and Iraqi casualties since the beginning of the war. What does their data say?

In July I did a diary showing how AirAmerica had done up through Spring 2005. Today the last of the Summer 2005 ratings were made public, so I can once again, in the spirit of a reality-based community, present the most recent information.