This is an excellent question!

I'm glad you like it nw

Seems like smart money is on no since the DNC is in August and the RNC is in September.

I couldn't really parse what you were trying to say with this question.

@ destry -- I dunno where the "smart" money is on this ... which is what makes this such a great question.

The significant number of visitors (and spikes) in the past were, I think, a result of individual participation in primaries and caucuses, and fund raising. The DNC and RNC conventions, while interesting to some/many, don't involve the personal/individual "stake" that the ballot box does.

Hi Lizzielizzie,

Thank you for the comment. I hope I can clear this up for you.

Short explanation:
Will Obama's August unique visitors minus McCain's fall to 999,999 or less?
YES - Obama leads by 999,999 or less
NO - Obama maintains a lead of 1 million or more.

Long explanation:
Basically we're predicting the movement of Obama's website visitors lead over McCain's. For July Obama was ahead by by 1,020,311 Unique Visitors.

The news that there is Obama fatigue (which could also be interpreted as 2008 election fatigue) suggests that there might be less visitors to Obama's site which might reduce Obama's lead to less than 1 million. During July Obama's site fell by more than 1/2 million unique visitors. If that trend continues in August, his lead will easily fall to less than 1 million. If you think this will happen wager YES.

Destry wisely observed that the Democrat National Convention (DNC) is in August. The DNC could re-energize the fatigued and reverse the drop in unique visitors to Obama's site. An increase in visitors to Obama's site would mean his lead does not fall to less than 1 million. If you think this will happen wager NO.

My comment #6 was typed during and before I read comment #5

@newswrangler - I dunno where the "smart" money is on this either...

I'll change my mind several times 8^)

@ lizzielizzie -- the question is asking how many people will visit McCain's and Obama's websites during the month of August -- and will there be more, or less, than one million visitors between the two sites.

In July, Obama had 1,020,311 MORE (unique) visitors than McCain did, and the question is asking will there be LESS than a million visitor-difference between Obama and McCain in August.

If you click on the link included in the background,
<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/johnmccain.com+barackobama.com/?metric=uv>
you'll see many more visitors to Obama's site than McCain's over the past many months. Since June, the higher numbers for Obama have fallen, and there is less of a difference between the number of visitors to each site.

The question is premised on "Obama Fatigue" -- which may be part of the reason. In my view, the significant reason has more to do with the extended democratic primaries, lasting into June, and the significant interest by voters in Senators Obama and Clinton.

Senator Clinton had a small lead in visitors over Obama in May, 2008. (You can compare visitors to McCain/Obama/Clinton here:
<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/johnmccain.com+barackobama.com+hillaryclinton.com/?metric=uv>

"Unique visitors" is a term used to identify (and count) individual visitors to a web site, rather than counting one user who visits a site ten times during the month as "ten visits". There's a pretty good explanation of how "unique visitors" are counted, here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_visitor>

If this hasn't helped, please comment again -- no doubt another user can explain it better than me ;-)

Heh -- I was typing my comment (and watching the Olympics, and the seagulls ;-) while fingers of fury responded in comment #6 ...