Michael's unofficial, unscientific tracking poll

Since I needed to go to the store yesterday afternoon, and since I needed to swing by my mom's house, I bundled up warmly and headed out. As I was driving, I got to thinking about how I've often said, these last few weeks, that I've been seeing a lot more Obama/Biden signs around here than I have McCain/Palin signs. That's been my subjective impression as I've driven around the area since campaign signs started going up in earnest a month or so ago, but I figured it might not be a bad idea to get some actual data. So I counted the signs as I drove back to my place.

Covering a distance of approximately 15 miles (with slightly more rural roads than urban streets, including 5.5 miles along a major state highway--where, interestingly, I saw not a single sign for either presidential candidate), I counted a total of 20 Obama/Biden signs to 13 McCain/Palin signs. I counted signs, not houses displaying them: since some houses displayed multiple signs (and one house I passed had signs for both Obama and McCain in its front yard--must make for interesting conversations over the dinner table there!), these numbers may be slightly skewed. On the other hand, unlike the Nickelodeon kiddie poll that had the screaming queen in the fedora wetting himself with anticipation the other day, at least my non-random and unscientific poll probably counted adults who can actually vote.

I tried to count up signs for the congressional race here in IL-14 too, but I just couldn't keep up with the numbers in my head. Maybe I'll do that one another time. I do seem to recall seeing more signs for the congressional races (both state and national) than for the top-of-ticket races--especially on houses where signs for Republican candidates were displayed.

Still and all, considering that Bush won this county 52-47 in 2004, I think it's an encouraging sign that Obama is up by about 7 points signs. That's a 3:2 margin of victory, assuming those numbers hold up in a couple of weeks.