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Thursday, May 12, 2005
A Pause -- OPEN THREAD
We're heading out of town on Friday for a weekend of camping with friends down south of here at Caballo Lake (above) or maybe Percha Dam (below) so there'll be a pause in the posting here. However, I'll leave this as an open thread so folks can take the initiative and keep the place alive during my absence. Go ahead, start something up, post some news or just say hi in the comments section. Our traveling mascot, Bosco the peachfaced lovebird, thanks you.
May 12, 2005 at 04:56 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Barb,
I just want express my immense gratitude for all you do. You've been doing an amazing job keeping us updated and informed and organizing meetup, and to say you deserve a break is huge understatement. Thank you. I hope you, M.E., and Bosco, have a wonderful, relaxing, rejuvenating trip!
Posted by: Nancy | May 13, 2005 6:52:00 AM
The figures below come from the Federal Election Commission site, which has the mandatory reporting forms filed by the parties. The three particular reports are at:
https://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00161810/164184/
https://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00161810/18662/
https://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00020818/171756/
In particular, I’m looking at line 31 for each form, called “total federal disbursements”, the ‘year to date’ column, which I think tells us how much each party spent on the president/Representative/Senate race in those years.
Here’s comparison 1:
Democrats, 2000: $1.6 million
Democrats, 2004: $2.4 million
In 2000 Al Gore apparently won the State by 366 votes. In 2004 John Kerry lost by perhaps 6,000 votes. What does this tell us? Does it mean:
A. more money doesn’t get you more votes?
B. The Gore campaign spent their money much more wisely than Kerry?
C. The Democratic party in 2004 was so disorganized and incompetent that the money was wasted?
D. Something else?
Now, comparison 2:
Democrats, 2004: $2.4 million
Republicans, 2004: $1.1 million
What does this tell us?
A. the republicans were much more efficient and effective?
B. the democrats wasted a lot of their money, compared to republicans?
C. it’s cheaper to buy republican votes than democratic votes?
D. the republicans had more volunteers, or used them more effectively?
E. something else?
Of course, there are a couple of other possibilities:
A. I’m misunderstanding the reports.
B. There was a lot of other money - such as 527s or other entities, which made a big difference.
C. money spent for ostensibly State purposes affected the federal races (State race expenditures aren’t reported to the FEC)
D. something else.
Can anyone help explain this?
Posted by: Mike Schneider | May 15, 2005 11:00:36 PM
Hope your trip was great! I'm still unwinding from mine.
Posted by: KathyF | May 17, 2005 1:34:00 AM
