Here's another unscientific analysis of some data regarding relative national support for the two candidates.

Again following the "Halloween Mask" model, merchandise sales are a good indicator of popular support for a candidate. This particular sample looks at sales of lots on eBay turned up by a search for either "obama bumper sticker" or "hillary bumper sticker". The same could be done for buttons and t-shirts, but for this sample, I just focused on the primary format of American political expression: the bumper sticker.

There are a number of statistical variables that one should be aware of, and if I were a trained statistician I would know how to handle those numbers. First, there are a lot of anti-Obama and anti-Hillary stickers that were listed, but in smaller numbers than the pro-candidate examples. Second, the number of stickers per lot sold also varies. Most notable is the finding that the majority of the Obama sticker lots that sold were lots of five or ten stickers. Most of the Hillary lots were single stickers. Some lots were combinations of stickers, buttons and t-shirts, again, more of these multiple item lots were for Obama items.

eBay allows one to do a "Completed Listings" search for the past three weeks worth of sales, so these figures are for the period spanning 3/7 - 3/22. Sales appear to have been steady throughout the three weeks, with no "Wright effect" observed.

For the three-week period the numbers are as follows:

"hillary bumper sticker":
203 lots listed
33 pro-hillary lots sold
24 anti-Hillary lots sold.

"obama bumper sticker":
652 lots listed
286 pro-Obama lots sold
21 anti-Obama lots sold

Not counting that a majority of Obama lots were for 5-10 stickers, Obama lots are being listed at a rate of  3:1 over the Hillary lots, and are selling at a rate of  9:1 over Hillary lots in the same period.

If we take into account the 5-10 items per Obama lot, Obama is outselling Hillary in the neighborhood of 50:1 in the bumper sticker market.

Does this mean anything? I have no idea, and realize that I have too much time on my hands today. If you find these figures even remotely interesting, please it the "recommend" button. Thanks!