The Command Post
2004 US Presidential Election
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November 20, 2003
Bush | The Power of Incumbency

Along with President Bush, candidates Dean and Kerry have announced they will not use public money (nor be bound by the restrictions that go along with campaigning at taxpayer expense) for the rest of the 2004 presidential campaign. Like former President Clinton, President Bush continues to break fundraising records for an incumbent president. While some find this surprising, it is to be expected. Given inflation, it would take a weak president to raise less money than his predecessor.

The real story is that the Democrats are actually raising more money than the Republicans. According to The Center for Responsive Politics, the Democratic presidential candidates have raised over $98 million vs. just under $85 million for President Bush. (These numbers were accurate according to the numbers reported to the government on October 15; obviously the number has increased by now). The number for the Democrats is actually understated -- Bob Graham's numbers are not shown since he has quit the race.


As my graph shows, even though the Democrats are raising more cash than the Republicans, their money will not be nearly as effective. Their house is currently divided, so even Howard Dean has well under 1/3rd of the money at the disposal of George Bush. And since Bush is unopposed for the Republican primary, he can save most of his money for the actual election, while the Democrats consume much of their current warchests battling amongst themselves.

As I editorialized a few weeks ago, the advantages of incumbency are almost insurmountable by a challenger unless the incumbent is unpopular within his own party and faces an independent challenger who can siphon off some of the incumbent’s traditional supporters. This is not the case with President George W. Bush. The longer the Democrats fight amongst themselves, and continue to divide up the Democratic funds, the tougher their challenge to overcome a popular incumbent.

Posted by Admiral Quixote at November 20, 2003 02:31 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Nice Chart!

Posted by: Ken E. at November 20, 2003 08:52 PM

For my Paint application, I created a series of icons to simulate a rendering algorithm. While the application is performing this CPU-intensive task, you can always see the status of the document by the icon changing in the Dock.

Posted by: Gilbert at January 23, 2004 10:54 PM

To put my money where my mouth is, in each new article I’ll build a hypothetical application that illustrates the guidelines I’m covering. Today’s application is called “Paint” and will be based on the photo-illustrative icon I created in my last article. Together we will complete each step, and by the end of the project we should have a well-designed, 95%-100% Aqua-compliant application. I’ll leave some room for personal preferences and the fact that Apple changes the OS every few months.

Posted by: Jerman at January 23, 2004 10:54 PM

Adhere to Layout Guidelines. Did you leave 12 pixels between your push buttons? Does the positioning of your pop-up menus make sense, and when do you use a pop-up versus a scrolling list? Are you using the right types of buttons for the proper functions?

Posted by: Cornelius at January 23, 2004 10:54 PM

To put my money where my mouth is, in each new article I’ll build a hypothetical application that illustrates the guidelines I’m covering. Today’s application is called “Paint” and will be based on the photo-illustrative icon I created in my last article. Together we will complete each step, and by the end of the project we should have a well-designed, 95%-100% Aqua-compliant application. I’ll leave some room for personal preferences and the fact that Apple changes the OS every few months.

Posted by: Michael at January 23, 2004 10:54 PM

So far in these articles, I have only dipped a toe or two into Aqua’s pool. I have covered basic aspects of building an Aqua-compliant application, including the building of photo-illustrative/3D application icons. Now it’s time to address other components of our Mac OS X application.

Posted by: Barnabas at January 23, 2004 10:55 PM

Dock Animation. Sometimes animating icons in the dock can be useful in communicating the status of the system or application.

Posted by: Martha at January 23, 2004 10:55 PM

Adhere to System Appearance. Does your application use all the sweetly colored buttons, delightfully shaded windows, and all the other “bells and whistles?”

Posted by: Alan at January 23, 2004 10:55 PM

Clicking an application in the dock should always bring forward an active window. If the user clicks on an open app’s icon in the Dock, the application is active and all unminimized windows come along with it. I have found a few problems with windows behaving independently of their application.

Posted by: Watkin at January 23, 2004 10:55 PM

User Assistance. This is helping the user with the proper “next step” when performing a task. Less guesswork for the user on what to do next makes for a better experience.

Posted by: Manasses at January 23, 2004 10:55 PM

Clicking an application in the dock should always bring forward an active window. If the user clicks on an open app’s icon in the Dock, the application is active and all unminimized windows come along with it. I have found a few problems with windows behaving independently of their application.

Posted by: Griffith at January 23, 2004 10:56 PM

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