Blog: Dan Power

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Tracking Presidential Candidates

Former President Bill Clinton and "Magic" Johnson made a campaign appearance to support Hillary on Tuesday, Dec. 18 at the Boys and Girls Club of Black Hawk County, Iowa. My wife, 19 year old son Ben and I attended with about 300 other people. We were in the gym. Magic gives a great "fire up" speech and Bill is "still Bill".

Politics is in full-swing in Iowa. Tracking the candidates is much easier with the Web!

For those interested in Presidential politics, check the map of campaign appearances by Presidential candidates at

http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/schedules/pastevents/index.html#candidate99

You can see the dense purple visit clouds over Iowa and New Hampshire. You can "play" a week by week animation; you can zoom in on Iowa, you can look at visits by a single candidate for a specific period of time. So what can we conclude from eye-balling this historical data?

1) Clinton has focused on the "major" cities in Iowa, but she has been all over the state. She recently completed an "All 99 counties matter tour". 19 events in Des Moines from April 1, 2007 to December 23, 2007 according to the mouseover data popup.

2) Obama has concentrated on "major" cities with 26 events in Des Moines.

3) Edwards has been in Iowa the most and 27 events in Des Moines.

4) Huckabee has focused heavily on Des Moines (27 events) and western Iowa.

5) Giuliani has been in 32 Iowa cities, including 6 events in Des Moines. So I'm not seeing Giuliani on TV (and we have continuous political ads) but he has not completely avoided Iowa. You can see his focus on New hampshire.

6) Romney has only been in Des Moines for 9 events, but he has been in the wealthy western Des Moines suburbs for an additional 11 events.

Well, I watched Ron Paul on "Meet the Press with Tim Russert" this morning and he actually made some sense. Interesting race for President shaping up with at least 3 viable Democrats and 3 Republicans. I'll probably attend a few more campaign events, but the snow here in Iowa is reducing the crowds and challenging the candidates and their staffs who are driving our rural interstates. Stay warm!

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