Found this over at The Christian Right Issue #1 "Separation of Church and State" It is the firm belief of the Christian Right that the separation of Church and State be maintained ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:51 PM
Blah
Posted by Slidge at 05:18 PM
Last nail in the coffin of the "Liberal Media Conspiracy", that is. Yesterday, more and more information was coming out that the Republican National Committee funded an organization that was either registering new Democratic voters and then ...
Posted by Slidge at 10:31 PM
CBS has backed off on their claim that the memos are authentic. It turns out, as I surmised, that the source was Bill Burkett, who now says he lied to CBS about the source of the documents. He claimed that he had received the documents from George ...
Posted by Slidge at 05:14 PM
Battleground update (a "battleground" state, to me, is one where neither candidate holds a majority in the most recent poll). Italics indicate a change since the last survey. Arkansas (6 EV, Kerry takes lead 46.6-46.5) Arizona (10 EV, Bush leads 4...
Posted by Slidge at 05:05 PM
This is the latest graph of the Electoral Vote tracking poll. It reflects ARG's release of all 50 of their state polls, along with Zogby's update yesterday of their battleground polls, as well as a few polls here and there that are more recent ...
Posted by Slidge at 03:19 PM
A listing of the states as of today that do not have either candidate with a majority in the most recent polls. Arkansas (6 EV, Bush leads 48-47) Colorado (9 EV, Bush leads 46-45) Connecticut (7 EV, Kerry leads 45-38) Maine (4 EV, Kerry leads 48-44)...
Posted by Slidge at 10:16 PM
It has been noticed that the Gallup polls (which are used by USA Today and CNN) have been showing much larger leads in the national race for Bush than most other polls are showing. It turns out that Gallup is oversampling Republican voters. Gallup ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:57 PM
After seeing the "evidence" provided by the pro-Bush crowd as they scramble to prove the Killian documents are forgeries, I have to agree with them on a few points. While an IBM Executive Model D typewriter, or an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter, ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:05 PM
I thought I'd throw up the most recent graph I have of the tracking poll.
Posted by Slidge at 09:13 PM
Bush has cut into Kerry's lead slightly, with Kerry now ahead 222 to 177. CNN (along with USA Today) is releasing several polls throughout the week. I'm not certain, but their polling to date seems awfully biased toward Bush. Not sure what their ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:04 PM
Kerry leads 222 to 167. Assuming that the polls reflect what was happening in the public mind 7-10 days earlier, the current polls are reflecting attitudes held immediately following the Bush convention. The early numbers don't look encouraging ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:04 PM
It certainly appears that on the surface, some of the documents that CBS brought forward challenging President Bush's version of his Texas Air National Guard record are forged. I've looked at the "evidence" coming from both sides of the story and in ...
Posted by Slidge at 06:13 PM
On 7/29, John Kerry gave his acceptance speech. At that moment, his EV poll total was 244. On 8/5, he hit his high total of 265 EV (which he held for two weeks). That gave Kerry a bounce of +21 from his convention, starting on 8/5 (which was ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:42 PM
I have a friend. Well, not actually "friend", since we haven't really talked to each other in quite a few years and we keep in touch mostly through fairly loud debates on a mutual mailing list. I have been using him as a filter for the way a lot of ...
Posted by Slidge at 10:07 PM
The tracking poll is just beginning to show Bush's bounce from his convention. According to Gallup, it would appear that Bush is going to have a very slight bounce from his convention, and some are interpreting Rassmussen's moving 3-day tracking ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:12 PM
Knight-Ridder is reporting that Bob Graham has written a book detailing that agents of the Saudi government aided some of the 9/11 hijackers. Graham is the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and also oversaw (with Porter Goss) ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:16 PM
I just went to update the tracking poll for this week (since I've been gone all week) and I was surprised to notice that there were really no polls out this week. Strategic Vision and Rasmussen each released polls, but I haven't been using them ...
Posted by Slidge at 05:03 AM
Link. John Kerry gave a midnight rebuttal to President Bush's acceptance speech tonight, and repeated the point that no matter what President Bush promised in his speech, he has still yet to deliver on the promises he made four years ago. And ...
Posted by Slidge at 05:43 AM
Link. John Kerry gave a midnight rebuttal to President Bush's acceptance speech tonight, and repeated the point that no matter what President Bush promised in his speech, he has still yet to deliver on the promises he made four years ago. And ...
Posted by Slidge at 05:43 AM
I'm taking a brief hiatus, but I will check in now and again and update the tracking poll.
Posted by Slidge at 05:02 AM
I'm taking a brief hiatus, but I will check in now and again and update the tracking poll.
Posted by Slidge at 05:02 AM
Bush has surpassed Kerry for the first time in this tracking poll.
Posted by Slidge at 09:15 PM
Bush has surpassed Kerry for the first time in this tracking poll.
Posted by Slidge at 09:15 PM
More fallout from the Swift Boat attack ads.
Posted by Slidge at 05:28 PM
The negative attack ads are really having an effect on Kerry's vote totals. He barely holds the lead right now, 205 to 202. Bush is beginning to trend away from weaker support and into stronger support as well. Even discounting the SurveyUSA ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:03 PM
The negative attack ads are really having an effect on Kerry's vote totals. He barely holds the lead right now, 205 to 202. Bush is beginning to trend away from weaker support and into stronger support as well. Even discounting the SurveyUSA ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:03 PM
I've had a few questions on how my tracking poll works. It's fairly simple - on almost a daily basis, some polling group (like Zogby, SurveyUSA or Quinnipiac Univ) releases a poll that they have done on a state. For instance, let's say Zogby has ...
Posted by Slidge at 06:58 PM
I've had a few questions on how my tracking poll works. It's fairly simple - on almost a daily basis, some polling group (like Zogby, SurveyUSA or Quinnipiac Univ) releases a poll that they have done on a state. For instance, let's say Zogby has ...
Posted by Slidge at 06:58 PM
Looks like the anti-Kerry attack ads have been effective.
Posted by Slidge at 04:28 PM
Looks like the anti-Kerry attack ads have been effective. UPDATE: Yes, this does include SurveyUSA's poll of California (which has Kerry with a +3 lead). If this poll is indeed an outlier, than Kerry's total could actually be 55 EV higher ...
Posted by Slidge at 04:28 PM
I was wondering about Kerry's strategy of taking on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by pushing the idea that the Bush Campaign is directly linked to the organization. At first, I felt that this strategy would backfire. However, it appears that it ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:42 PM
I was wondering about Kerry's strategy of taking on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by pushing the idea that the Bush Campaign is directly linked to the organization. At first, I felt that this strategy would backfire. However, it appears that it ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:42 PM
John Kerry's campaign today filed a complaint with the FEC, alleging that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth anti-Kerry ads are "illegally coordinated" with the Republicans and the Bush-Cheney campaign. A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign ...
Posted by Slidge at 10:42 PM
Some big news in the EV Tracking Poll. I have implemented the probability formulas suggested by Kevin Drum, so we now have a new category of EV tracks based on the statistical probability of either candidate winning the state. The other big news ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:10 PM
Nice to see the US has its priorities straight when it comes to the War on Terror: "A Hamas leader and two other suspected members of the Palestinian militant group were indicted on charges they participated in a lengthy racketeering conspiracy to ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:53 PM
Nice to see the US has its priorities straight when it comes to the War on Terror: "A Hamas leader and two other suspected members of the Palestinian militant group were indicted on charges they participated in a lengthy racketeering conspiracy to ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:53 PM
The anti-Kerry crowd likes to say that Kerry had no "signature" legislation (ie, a law with his name on it), and therefore has a poor Senate record. David Sirota has written an excellent article about Kerry and BCCI, which lays the smack down on ...
Posted by Slidge at 10:32 PM
I believe that we are seeing the downside of the Kerry bounce. While his vote numbers outside of the MoE has remained steady at 265, his internal numbers (which I call "confidence" numbers) are definitely moving away from the ">10%" category and ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:50 PM
Donald Rumsfeld has been out of the public eye since the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, and my friend noticed today that Condi Rice has not been seen much since her stellar testimony before the 9/11 Commission. Prominent on the Sunday talk shows, however,...
Posted by Slidge at 09:45 PM
Some slight movement today, following the release of polls for Colorado, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Bush lost nine EV overall, giving Kerry a 265 to 167 lead. Kerry had some drift out of the >10% category into the 5-9% category, shifting 21 EV ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:15 PM
Yet another person prevented from entering a Bush/Cheney event because they support the other candidate. This is happening with alarming frequency. I thought America was a place where we could all be different, and at the same time, remain ...
Posted by Slidge at 06:44 PM
Research 2000's poll of North Carolina has put that state into a statistical tie, moving 15 EV from Bush to the "at-large" pool. Kerry now leads 265 to 161. This marks a 35 point drop for Bush in the last five days. Kerry has been at 265 EV for ...
Posted by Slidge at 10:00 PM
ARG's poll for Ohio came out today, and the race is a statistical tie. Bush had been leading outside of the MoE in Ohio, so this takes Ohio's 20 EV out of his total and into the kitty, giving Kerry a 265 to 176 lead over Bush. Bush was last at 176 ...
Posted by Slidge at 04:33 PM
The SBVT have made several claims about Kerry, including that he lied about his wounds he received to win his Purple Hearts, that he lied about enemy combat when he won his Bronze Star, that he lied about killing an innocent VC to win his Silver Star,...
Posted by Slidge at 06:06 PM
Two polls out today, for Oklahoma and Michigan. No change in the overall numbers, Kerry still leads Bush 265 to 196. There was a slight change as Kerry's numbers are slowly drifting away from the ">10%" column and into the "5-9%" column. The next ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:05 PM
Here are two charts that show some interesting trends. The first is the graph of Bush's approval ratings mapped over the raising of the terrorist threat levels. As can be seen, whenever Bush's ratings take a downward turn, the threat level gets ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:38 PM
Hawaii comes out with its first poll of the campaign season, which gives the state to Kerry, although by a smaller margin that Gore's victory in Hawaii had been. This leaves the grand total still at 265 to 196 in favor of Kerry, although he has ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:26 PM
The GOP desperation grows. Now they have their own "documentary" which apparently details Kerry's "flip flop" on Iraq. Oddly enough, to me it shows that Kerry was mostly concerned about the lack of inspections in Iraq more than anything. And it ...
Posted by Slidge at 10:04 PM
No polls out today, so the EV count remains at 265-196 for Kerry. Oh, by the way, Bill O'Reilly is a lying sack of shit.
Posted by Slidge at 09:33 PM
This graph shows the trend that Kerry's EV votes are ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:38 PM
As I suspected, the 7/26 FD Public Mind poll of New Jersey was most likely an outlier. That poll had made New Jersey a close race, with Kerry having a 2-point lead over Bush. Today, Quinnipiac released their New Jersey poll, giving Kerry a 49-36 ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:27 PM
No "bounce" for Kerry? Since the Convention ended, ...
Posted by Slidge at 05:13 PM
No change from yesterday -- Kerry leads 250 to 196. Actually, a minor change -- Kerry moved 21 votes from the "5%-9%" column over to the ">10%" column, giving him a 174-131 lead in the >10% category. Discounting the MoE completely, the two ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:32 PM
I've been thinking about the raising of the terror threat based upon the information found in Pakistan, and while I agree that the timing of it is suspicious, I think everyone is missing the major fundamental problem with our homeland security. The ...
Posted by Slidge at 06:35 PM
Read him.
Posted by Slidge at 08:24 PM
No "bounce" for Kerry? Well, if you ignore that Kerry now leads Florida outside of the MoE (according to Zogby), yeah, there's no "bounce". Zogby released new battlefield state polls today, and in those polls outside of the MoE, Kerry leads 250 to ...
Posted by Slidge at 05:59 PM
There is a debate raging right now about whether the Bush Administration is using "terrorist threats" in order to intimidate the American voters into supporting President Bush over the challenger, John Kerry. In his press conference announcing that ...
Posted by Slidge at 04:40 PM
In polls outside of the MoE, Kerry still leads 238 to 176. This makes a -1 vote change overall for Kerry since 7/23, and a +9 increase since last Friday. Bush has lost -5 votes since 7/23, and has changed -20 votes since last Friday. Yet, ...
Posted by Slidge at 10:03 PM
The Democratic National convention is over, and John Kerry has won the party's nomination to run for President of the United States. In his acceptance speech, he layed out his positive vision of the direction America should be going in, and why he ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:25 PM
I was talking to Mrs. Slidge, and she is having a difficult time trying to figure out why Bush appeals to so many people. She points out that Kerry is engaged in a lot of activities that most people would normally find pretty cool -- snowboarding, ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:47 PM
This is classic. The Bush Administration today released its projections on GDP, saying that they expect real GDP to increase to 4.7% this year, and slowing to 3.7% in 2005. This projection would normally make sense, as last quarters GDP was 4.5%. ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:45 PM
The new campaign motto for President Bush is the extraordinarily weak "We're turning the corner. There's no turning back." Well, Mr. President, I know what's around that corner. It's a pretty seedy part of town. I, personally, would like to go ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:34 PM
According to the Associated Press, George Bush has a "narrow" lead over Kerry in the electoral votes. My own tracking poll shows a quite different result, with Kerry leading Bush 229 to 196. Bush actually went down 5 points today due to ARG's poll ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:14 PM
The Daily Howler, the premier website monitoring our Media (although Media Matters is another great website at exposing the Media's ability to lie baldfacedly with no shame), gives its take on the supposed "flip-flop" of John Kerry voting to ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:27 PM
LadyLitBlitz, the author of a fine blog on writing, has asked whether we are going to have another "hanging chad scenario" in Florida, due to a recent report about Florida touch-screen voting booths not working. My take? Probably. There is a ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:17 PM
Only one poll out today, and that is for New Jersey. The poll was conducted by FD Public Mind and has Kerry leading Bush 45%-43% with a 3.5% MoE. According to Public Mind: "John Kerry has been relying on George W. Bush to give people a ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:09 PM
Only two polls out today: Kentucky and North Carolina. No change in the totals, Kerry still leads 244 to 201. Bush maintains his lead in North Carolina, and some have pointed out that this spells trouble for Edwards since it is his home state. ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:14 PM
Vice President Dick Cheney blasted Kerry and Edwards today for voting to authorize the President to use force in Iraq, but voting against the $87 billion appropriation bill to fund the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Having seen this ...
Posted by Slidge at 04:47 AM
The argument over whether or not Kerry will be strong on national defense against terrorism has the anti-Kerry people engaging in a spectacular display of 'doublethink' (defined by George Orwell as the "mental capacity to accept as equally valid two ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:57 PM
New polls out for a lot of states: Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, among others. There are two polls out for Ohio. The CNN/Gallup poll has Kerry leading 51-45 (MoE: 5), and the Columbus Dispatch poll has Bush leading 47-44 (MoE: 2). I'm going ...
Posted by Slidge at 03:58 PM
Taking a day off after traveling all weekend for a party. I will update the electoral vote tracking poll tomorrow (I believe some new polls came out over the weekend). Listened to most of the Yankees-Red Sox series on crackly AM radio this ...
Posted by Slidge at 05:25 PM
A few new polls came out today: California, Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania. For those polls where the results are outside of the margins of error, Kerry loses four electoral votes, leaving him with a 239-181 lead over Bush. ...
Posted by Slidge at 08:39 PM
I just love this picture.
Posted by Slidge at 07:33 PM
Today President Bush is out courting the African-American vote. The thesis of his address is found in this statement: "Does the Democrat party take African-American voters for granted? It's a fair question. I know plenty of politicians assume ...
Posted by Slidge at 07:08 PM
Here is the report in HTML, courtesy of kottke.org. You can also view the PDF of the Report, courtesy of the Washington Post.
Posted by Slidge at 04:51 PM
According to ESPN, union officials have told the Montreal Expos players that the decision as to where the team will be playing is near, and that it looks as if the team will be relocating to the Washington, DC area. If they do move to DC, I hope ...
Posted by Slidge at 11:10 PM
I was talking to Mrs. Slidge last night, and we both feel that the Republicans are going to win this election solely for the reason that they don't plan on losing the election at all. We've all heard the conspiracy theories as to how this is going ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:54 PM
I have, purely for the sake of curiosity, created an Excel spreadsheet which I am using to track the various state presidential polls. At this point, I'm really only interested in the number of electoral votes Bush or Kerry has gained in states ...
Posted by Slidge at 09:22 PM
#!/usr/local/bin/perl print "Hello, world!\n";
Posted by Slidge at 09:05 PM