Looking at the data, I see that several of the linked articles are now surpassing the official re-election websites of the target - woo hoo!  Wiki links still seem to have no effect, though.

I'm now using some Perl code to get the rankings through the google API, so my results differ slightly from Lucas O'Conner's updates.  I think automated results tracking is the wave of the future, and would allow us to track, say, a dozen articles per candidate, without these updates taking lots of our useful time.

My program also displays all URLs from the target site in the top 100 to help identify slight URL changes, giving us just a little bigger window into the world of Google.

Overview: progress is positive overall, with most non-wikipedia articles moving up, but also several others dropping off the search entirely, mostly due to competing articles on the same site.

One other winner is the term "google bomb", where Chris's MyDD post now shows up as link #6. :)

I'm been home with a wracking cough all week - no GOTV or calls for me - so I might as well go through the links to see where we are.  Data retrieved between 2:30PM and 4:00PM PST Saturday.

Over the flip for the data...

I've read several articles recently about Naval force deployments to the Persian Gulf and eastern Mediterranean with great concern, and am exploring how bombing Iran could affect gas prices and the election on Nov. 7th.

Sources seem to point to forces arriving around October 21st and Nov. 1st.  If the administration starts bombing Iran shortly before the election, crude oil prices are sure to jump within days, I'd WAG 20%-50%.  Everyone thinks the administration wouldn't dare start bombing before the election, because gasoline prices would rise, but there's a lag time between when crude oil prices rise, and when gas prices rise.

From a randomly googled website

The Energy Information Administration did a study in 2003 to determine what the real time lag was in pass-through from crude oil costs to gasoline costs, based on historical price changes. It found that, while different regions in the U.S. vary, on average 44% of a change in oil prices is rolled into gasoline prices within a week of the oil price change, and 66% within two weeks of the change. But, again on average, it was discovered that it takes about seven weeks for the full effect of an oil price change to get reflected in gasoline prices, whether prices are rising or falling."

So, there's a small window of opportunity for the administration between Oct. 31st and Nov. 7th when they could bomb Iran for the "support our president" vote, and yet not see a gas price rise at the pump.  How much does this matter?  I don't know, but I think the administration is crazy and would do anything if it thought it would help on Nov. 7th.