Irregular Tracking:
Following the Democratic Candidates on Different Paths

Follow these paths of little-t truth:

• Media Coverage, Blog Saturation, Meetups, Web Rank, Sticker Sales
• Leaders in Sticker Sales for the 50 states
• State Concentration of Dean Letter-Writers
• Donation Profiles

  If you read the newspaper or watch television news, you're regularly inundated with the latest polling data for the Democratic presidential contenders (if you're a real junkie, you can even compare results over time here). And every three months, there's a splash of news coverage regarding the fundraising exploits of the candidates.

  But isn't there more than polling data and money to running a successful political campaign? We think so. Voluminous media coverage helps get a name onto people's lips. The underground media known as the "blogosphere" tracks the less formal spread of news and views about a contender from blog to blog, and thereby from heart to heart. Visits to a candidate's web site both indicate and generate interest in that candidate. Links to a candidate's web site indicate enough interest for someone to direct flow right to that candidate's site. Grassroots organizing can spread good feelings about a candidate without the spending of cold hard cash. And bumper stickers that people put on their cars for a candidate not only spread positive word in a very public way but also reflect a great deal of enthusiasm for that candidate, the kind of support that goes beyond checking a box on a survey form.

  Here at Irregular Times, we decided to follow and graph these five less-tracked items on one page (this one!), so that you can get a bigger feel for how each of the candidates is doing on different levels.

  • Media coverage is measured as the number of major newspaper articles containing a candidate's name in the headline or opening paragraphs in the Lexis-Nexis newsbank archive during a month. Come back for monthly updates of these data.
    
    
  • The blog saturation of a candidate is measured as the percentage of all mentions of Presidential contenders in RSS-Syndicated Weblogs, or "blogs," that refer to any one particular candidate.
    
    
  • Alexa.com ever-so-kindly generates a rank-order graph tracking the popularity of each candidate's website -- so if Howard Dean's website displays a rank of 2,500 that means that his website is the 2,500th most visited out of all the gazillions of sites Alexa tracks. Alexa updates the graph below automatically every day.
    
    
  • The extent of grassroots organizing for a candidate is measured in two ways: first as the number of individuals signed up to attend monthly meetings for a candidate through Meetup.com, and secondly as the number of individuals added to a candidate's total each day. The first indicates the accumulated grassroots strength of a candidate, and the second indicates the recruiting momentum of a candidate at a given point in time. These numbers are collected for every day and updated once a week.
    
    
  • Bumper sticker sales are graphed in two ways:
    • First, as the percentage of all candidate items sold on our webshop, Irregular Goods (low-speed shop, high-speed shop), garnered by any one candidate for a given month.
      
    • Second, as above but including "Anybody But Bush" as a candidate (measured by sales of "Anybody But Bush" bumper stickers.
      

  Unlike the pundits on the tv talk shows, we know when to clam up. We'll leave the analysis, and subsequent pondering, to you. Here's the data; come back every month to see how the candidates' fates have changed.

  Media Coverage

  

  Blog Saturation

  

  Website Rank

  Candidate Meetup Membership

  

  Candidate Meetup New Members Added

  

  Candidate Bumper Sticker Sales at Irregular Goods

  

  Candidate Bumper Sticker Sales at Irregular Goods, if you include "Anybody But Bush" as a candidate

  

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  Leadership in sticker sales, by state

  The above information is aggregated geographically; that is, one can draw conclusions for the whole 50 states, but a glimpse of what's going on in one's neck of the woods isn't possible.

  Not possible? Hah! We at Irregular Times... well, we're pretty busy, but we thought it would be fun to find another indicator to see who's zooming and who's zipping across the 50 states. The graphic below shows which candidate is selling the most stickers in almost all of the 50 states. I say almost all, because there are 5 states from which we haven't received any orders for candidates yet. Take a gander a see if you can find any meaningful pattern:

  

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  In 2004, America is at a Crossroads,
  but if you'd rather not decide on a destination just yet you can
  Mosey on back to Irregular Times
  
  

  
  

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