A caveat/correction accompanying my praise for the redesigned PDC website (regarding which David Postman has similar thoughts): the "cash-on-hand" numbers I provided have to be taken with a major grain of salt.
You can see in the "candidates" section of the "Search the Database" function that a listing of "contributions" and "expenditures" is given. Sadly, that's not the whole tale, which would otherwise allow for a logical and consequent cash-on-hand tally.
At the old PDC website you could see contribution and expenditure totals based on the last summary (C4) report by a campaign. In between those reports, you could also track incoming receipts via required C3 reports from campaigns, detailing their deposits of contributions.
The new PDC site compiles that recent C3 data and combines it with the latest C4 reports to give you the aforementioned summary data. Meaning, the new summary page is rather up-to-date on contributions, not so much on expenditures. It all depends on when on the reporting calendar [pdf] you're looking.
By chance, a C4 report is due today, which will give a snapshot look at various data points, including cash-on-hand. In between C4 reports to the PDC (a schedule that varies notably thanks to the Legislature), the expenditure numbers will vary in their relevance.
Long story short: the cash-on-hand numbers I originally cited aren't going to be very helpful since the last C4 report prior to today was back in early June, covering through the end of May. Much has transpired in some races, especially that for Governor, since then.
Posted by Eric Earling at July 29, 2008 12:09 AM | Email ThisEveryone posting on SP should at least look at the information available. At least look up one of your candidates and check out their contributions and expenditures.
Posted by: swatter on July 29, 2008 07:27 AMThere is a Superior Court race that has six gents. One idiot has collected nearly 100k and another about 70k, while a third is at 35k. That is more than Rick Bart, supposedly a serious candidate for US House, has raised.
Question: what is so special about Superior Court that justifies such contributions?
Posted by: swatter on July 29, 2008 09:12 AMProve you are still left of Ron Sims - tell us now how much you like this new ST ballot measure, why we should vote to send untold billions to Greg Nickels, etc. We're counting on your unique perspective.
Posted by: Wishkah on July 29, 2008 09:42 AMAlso, the new site is kinda slow. Does a lot of useless page reloads. And hard to script.
The old site is still available and still easy to script and still has CSV export.
Posted by: pudge on July 29, 2008 04:51 PMI won't hold my breath waiting for your description.