Talk:United States presidential election, 2008 timeline
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This article was nominated for deletion on 2006-11-17. The result of the discussion was keep. |
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[edit] Significant events
What's the method of selecting significant events to place on the timeline? It seems like editorial pieces would be arbitrarily selected; for instance, despite Maureen Dowd's influence, her columns may repeatedly discuss the 2008 election, not to mention other columnists. If this page is going to exist, it seems like the only events that should be on it are (1) formal announcements of candidacy, (2) formal withdrawals from candidacy, (3) party primary dates, (4) matters of significant historic influence (e.g., the "Deam Scream," the "read my lips" promise, Biden's '88 plagiarism charges), and (5) the actual federal election timeline. That means that (1) general newspaper pieces and (2) announcements or withdrawals of general interest (e.g., Clinton, Obama, and Kerry expressing interest in running, and Warner no longer expressing interest) should be excluded. That makes it more streamlined and prevents unnecessary focus on certain candidates over others based on POV, or pro- or anti-candidate editing. Zz414 23:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
- Once again, what's the standard for listing events? And how is this article useful? Doesn't it just duplicate the Presidential Election page? Zz414 16:01, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
- Once again, any standard or usefulness? If not, I'll AfD it shortly. Zz414 20:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Arn't we being a little...presumptuous?
We arn't positive that the 2008 Elections will even happen. 35.11.183.95 22:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC) Yeah, but the campaign has been going on like gangbusters for a while now.
[edit] The use of Polls
As you can see I put some poll numbers on January 1, 2007. I figure that to make the timeline slightly more comprehensible, the state of the race according to newspaper polls should be put up quarterly. The results from "cattle call" straw polls should be put up too, as they actually have some effect on the race as a whole. The reason that I chose Gallup is that it's the oldest and most venerable, the Des Moines Register poll was the closest Iowa poll to the first of the year.(another one just came out, but the polling was done in October, and really didn't count for anything.)
The "announcement" phase is going to go on like gangbusters until the middle of February, with Al Gore dickering until late spring. The first fundraising figures should be made public at the end of March, which is a good time to take another look.Ericl 16:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)Ericl.
[edit] Be sure to cite sources
The timeline approach was really valuable for building out the 2004 election page (started in 2002). However, one thing I regretted that I didn't do and that others didn't do either was to cite sources in a way the articles could be found (e.g. not just the link, but the headline, the source name, etc). News stories tend to be really ephemeral, and only by capturing the sources can you go back and do a bang-up job creating a good article from the timeline article. -- RobLa 06:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
- Phew, I've completed my self-assigned mission to find and assign sources for just about all items on the article using the {cite news} template, at least for all of the now "historic" ones and also for many of the "future" items. Please keep up the current level of 'attributability' when editing this article. Peterbr 21:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] NM Governor Bill Richardson comment sourced
Hey! Democratic presidential candidate and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson told a group of supporters at a breakfast in Iowa that he believes the Democratic contest will be over at the end of January, 2008 after the first four state contests (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina). It is a relevant statement and the Associated Press is a reliable source, so I noted it in the article and cited the source--here: [1] ProfessorPaul 00:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
