Showing posts with label 2010 Congressional Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2010 Congressional Election. Show all posts

A great iPhone App  

Posted by Rob Barton in , , , , , , ,

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Posted at my new blog App-lesauce:


By: iPhone FLOSS
Site: http://www.iphonefloss.com
Release Date: June 2, 2009
Click on the icon to download app.




Being a part-time political blogger(read amateur) myGovernment is one of the more amazing apps that I have come across. It will live on my iPod long afer I have forgotten about other "favorite" apps. The scope of the information that you can get from this app is amazing.
The app is divided into four tabs: Congress, Bills, Spending, and Community.

Screenshots:

screenshot1screenshot2
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The Congress tab lists all of the members of congress separated by House and Senate. Clicking on the name of the representative gives you quick links to call, email, mention on Twitter, or post a comment in the built in community. Clicking on the blue arrow next to the name gives you all contact information, Info Stream, which is a list of websites in which the rep participates(website, youtube, facebook, etc.). You will also get any committee assignments for the rep and any recent news activity.
The Bills tab functions just like the Congress tab. Clicking on a bill will allow you to get sponsor info, the full text of the bill, a Twitter mention button, and a comment button for the community. The blue arrow provides you with a link to the bill text, sponsor and co-sponsor information, and the history of the bill.
The Spending tab allows you to see spending by state, congressional district, or contractor. (I could never get the contractor info to load, though. Clicking on the state or district allows you to contact the representatives, or Twitter mention on the spending of that district/state. Clicking on the blue arrow gives you a breakdown of how much the district/state is spending, who the representatives are, and for which contractor the money was spent.
The Community tab lets you see and post messages/replies to the community forum.
This app is full of information for citizens to make informed decisions on election day. It is also a good tool for the poilitcal bloggers out there. I will give myGovernment a 10 out of 10.

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Congressional Ratings by Year  

Posted by Rob Barton in , ,

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With a couple of weeks left in the year I thought it would be good to look back at the congressional job approval numbers for the year, and how they compare to previous years.

The numbers I am presenting come from pollingreport.com. What I did was take the average difference between people who approved of the job congress was doing and those who dissapproved. This includes a large number of polls (80-90 a year) from a good number of sources, so the sample is large.

During the year 2005, the first year on the site, congress earned itself an average -24% approval rating. Twenty-four percent more people thought that congress was doing a bad job than a good one. In 2006, that number jumped to -33.1%. This swing ushered in the Democratic majority that we enjoy(gag!) today.

The beginning of 2007 showed the momentum that the democrats had. The first few months of 2007 showed approval ratings from the single digits into the lower twenties. By August of 2007, people realized what the dems were up to and the rating jumped as high as -58% and stayed between the high 30's to low 50's for the rest of the year. The average for 2007 ended up being -32.9%, a negligible gain for the year.

By 2008 the people showed exactly what they thought of their new congress. The average score was a -53.2% difference in the people who thought congress was doing well vs. doing poorly. That shows a 20.3% jump in congress' disapproval rating. Numerous scores above 60% since October show what must be an alarming trend for the dems. In 2009, it will all be on them. Can anyone say backlash in the 2010 elections? How about mandate? I say that we end up seeing both.

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