Sarah Palin Wins Vagina Vote

Hot off the presses from Reuters:

"Before the Democratic National Convention in late August, Obama held an 8 percentage point lead among white women voters, 50 percent to 42 percent, but after the Republican convention in early September, McCain was ahead by 12 points among white women, 53 percent to 41 percent, the poll found."

This point swing is something we haven't seen in a very long time. Back in the university days, we used to call a swing like this "statistically significant." How refreshing. Is Samantha Bee right? Are women abandoning that whole pro-choice thing to get a woman into the White House? Just like that, huh? If Democratic women believed in god, I'd say they just sold their soul for vagina. Now of course I sell my soul for vagina every friday and saturday night at bars and clubs, but I sorta expected more from the fairer sex.

Statistics Going Into DNC

Going into the Democratic National Convention, Gallup has McCain and Obama tied up at 45% a piece. Rasmussen Reports puts Obama in the lead with 46% to McCain's 42%. Despite the candidates being neck-and-neck, various web metrics still diverge greatly, consistently favoring Obama. While JohnMcCain.com has seen a major traffic increase since earning the nomination, BarackObama.com is still averaging over a million more hits per month [Compete]. That's over double the traffic.

If you look at search engine traffic, over 3000 keywords are driving visitors to barackobama.com while just under 1000 keywords drive visits to johnmccain.com


On Youtube, Obama is remains light years ahead of McCain for subscribers and views. It's just impossible for McCain to make any headway so the raw Youtube numbers are pretty worthless. There's one interesting consistency. Obama's Youtube videos are generally rated 5 stars. McCain's are generally rated 3 stars. See the graphic above.

John McCain and YouTube

Today's Washington Times article on John McCain and the Viral phenomenon surrounding his recent 'Celebrity' attacks is quite interesting. According to the article, the recent series of 'brutal yet entertaining' attack ads and the 'combination of wit and insult, has pushed his YouTube channel to the sixth most watched on the site this week.' And John McCain has beaten Barack Obama's channel for 'seven straight days and 11 of the past 14 days.'

This article theorizes that McCain is trying to court the YouTube vote. And goes on to characterize this as a 'giant reversal' since 'Obama had been quadrupling McCain's YouTube views and (was beating) him every day since February.'

The Drudge Report is also onto this theory and has titled the link to the article, 'McCain takes lead on YouTube hits.' Both parties see this as a good sign for McCain. BUT, all this harkens back our Viralroots argument/theory that knowing the true temperament of viewers is impossible. Right? Let's discuss, cause I'm not convinced this is a win for McCain.

Firstly, I don't always think all publicity is good publicity. There's the possiblity the ads could rub people the wrong way. And, regardless of the effect of the ads, its also not automatic that the the viewers are McCain supporters, ie. what if half the viewers are Obama fans who are pissed off, but want to see the ads? Does it even matter? Will online buzz even equate to votes? Time will tell.

But in my opinion, this stuff makes McCain look bad. His handlers have put him into a situation where he's associated him with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears attack ads and now...Paris Hilton's video has gone viral - and it attacks him back! This press can't be good for McCain. The message, whatever it was, is lost and the Viral-ness has taken over. Obama is virtually unaffected. And Paris Hilton is the real winner. Ya' know, cause she's so...hot. Uggg...

For some perspective with the statistics: Obama's YouTube channel still dominates, with 51 million all-time video views. McCain trails with 8.3 million views.
McCain's silver lining: He's garnered 4.1 million views this month compared with Obama's 2 million as of Wednesday evening.

(Washington Times Link)

Poll Position

It's a pun. Get it?

So, we're four days away from the Texas Primaries. And Texas is clearly one big bad banana. The polls are close but Obama is showing a sli-- oh, fuck it. After Tuesday, there's still 750 delegates to go. And Texas is just half of the total up for grab on Tuesday, which is about 440. Sure, it's a big number. The biggest left. But from what I'm reading about Texas's oddball dual primary/caucus system, it's not even worth the effort. Here's how it works: You simply multiply the number of voters in a district's previous election by the current number of voters who show up by dawn carrying campaign signs and pitchforks, then add total sheep farms, subtract illegal border crossings, then carry the 1. And presto: number of delegates awarded. Simple, right? (If you think you can do a better job explaining it, then be my guest.) So anyway, ya, Barack Obama shows a slight lead in Texas over Hillary Clinton in several polls, which may or may not effect who gets the nomination, so fucking what. Can either of them beat General Jack D. Ripper? Well, the answer is maybe. If and only if Ron Paul runs on a third party ticket, earning the vote of actual Republicans who find General Ripper (meaning John McCain for those of you in the cheap seats. Ya, you. Watch a movie in black and white every once in a while.) just as abhorrent and liberal as a woman or black man, thereby inadvertently electing said woman or black man. (See Clinton/Bush/Perot 2000 for less hacky explanation.) Okay. Now that we actually had a serious conversation about politics, let's take a look at shitty campaign ads with our buddy James Kotecki for the Politico.com

Feeling Super?

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday and everyone and their mother will be covering it. I'm only interested in one thing. What is more accurate? Traditional polling or Internet polling? Nationally, Real Clear Politics is showing poll averages with Hillary Clinton 2.5 points ahead (statistically insignificantly) and McCain 18.3 points ahead. This is clearly vastly different than the Internet support we've been covering over the past year. On YouTube, Barack Obama still outnumbers Hillary Clinton in subscribers by greater than 2 to 1. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney also outnumbers McCain by 2 to 1. And, of course, Ron Paul still outnumbers everyone combined. Oh, and then there's MySpace where Obama outnumbers Clinton in friends by 5 to 1. Well, here are my thoughts: The Internet just isn't what it's cracked up to be. Clinton is more of a white male than Obama, only the kook fringe uses YouTube and only kids under voting age use MySpace. My Solution? Presidential Primaries should be like American Idol. You vote from your cell phone and you can vote as many times as you want. See that? I just fixed America. I can has cookie?

But seriously, folks. I'm really excited to see how tomorrow turns out. No matter what happens, history will be made for both parties. The Democrats will have given the nomination for the first time in history to either a woman or an African Americn. And the Republicans will have given their nomination for the first time ever to either a Mormon or Dr. Strangelove. (Wow, I can't believe I had enough self-control to skip the Sammy Davis Jr. joke.) Until tomorrow.

Iowa Polls Yield Mixed Results

With three months to go before primaries, it looks like Hawkeye voters haven't quite made up their minds on the Democrats - and Iowa's gonna come down to the wire.

Sen. Hillary Clinton holds a 6 point edge (30-24 percent) over Sen. Barack Obama in the latest American Research Group (ARG) poll, while Obama edges out Clinton by four points in a Newsweek poll (28-24 percent). Meanwhile, John Edwards comes in a close third in both polls — with 19% in the ARG poll and 22% in the Newsweek poll.

Random Iowa facts (you know... cause I know you wanna know):
a) Iowa's also known as the Tall Corn State.
b) Iowa has about 3 Million people.
c) Iowa state motto: Our liberties we prize and our rights
we will maintain
d) Famous Iowans: Jonny Carson, Herbert Hoover, Ashton Kutcher and John Wayne.

You can read more election info on the CNN political ticker here.

Ron Paul Wins Maryland Straw Poll

The Maryland Republican Party’s first-ever presidential straw poll at the State Fair resulted in nearly 1,000 Marylanders casting a vote for their favorite Republican candidate for president. And the winner was: Ron Paul.

While most campaigns didn't have a representative present, the Ron Paul campaign had full representation for all eleven days. Paul came in first place with 263 votes, Mayor Rudy Giuliani was second with 220 votes, and Senator Fred Thompson received 188 votes, which garnered the third place spot.

The rest of the votes were cast as follows:
89 votes for Governor Mitt Romney
54 votes for Senator John McCain
35 votes for Governor Mike Huckabee,

Chris Cavey, First Vice Chairman of the Maryland GOP, stated the following: “The final vote showing Ron Paul won is a lesson for all campaigns of how grassroots politics can make all the difference. The Paul campaign repeatedly e-mailed their base of support to turn out at the State Fair to cast a vote for Dr. Paul, and in doing so, demonstrated that a small organized operation can beat the odds.”

Looks like Paul's Viral Campaigning has made quite an effect - at least at this local level thus far. We'll continue to monitor. Read more from the Maryland Republican Party here.

Poll: White Male Factor Helps White Male, John Edwards

Recent Rasmussen Reports polling shows that despite Hillary Clinton's lead in the Democratic Primary pack, she's behind John Edwards and Barack Obama in match-ups with Republicans. Today's poll puts Hillary Clinton neck and neck with Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani while a poll from last week puts John Edwards 11 points ahead against Fred Thompson and 7 points ahead against Rudy Giuliani. Even Barack Obama holds 6 point leads over both Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, despite being a white male only in spirit. So when push comes to shove, is America ready for a female president, or just not Hillary?

Polling Passions: 49% Of Voters Emotionally Resistant To Hillary Clinton In the White House, Survey Says

Choosing a Presidential candidate to vote for in the Primaries is not the easiest decision in the world. Personally, I look for various cues, and they're not all ideological. For instance, one of the most important questions I ask myself is, will I sleep well at night with this candidate in the White House? Well, Resonance Technologies and Flimp Media have developed an emotionally based survey system that attempts to get passed ideology and uncover voter passion. Press Release:

Using a unique neuroscience-based methodology that quantifies the genuine passionate emotions that motivate or inhibit voter behavior, Resonance Technologies and Flimp Media released the first of a series of RezTech VoterTrends™ surveys that measure voter passions and motivations for the leading presidential candidates.

[...]

Two national voter passion surveys were conducted in April and June via the internet to a pool of over 100,000 voters measuring voters’ emotional reaction to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. In-depth survey data and nearly 1,000 specific voter comments were collected in response to the question:

What if Hillary Clinton is elected the next President of the United States? How would that make you feel?

A majority (51%) of the voters responded that they are “highly resistant” to the thought of Hillary Clinton as President while 28% responded that they would be “enthusiastic” about Hillary becoming President.

Resonance Technologies and Flimp Media have developed an incredibly breakthrough web application to showcase their results where, in addition to distribution graphs, you can actually view verbatim comments from respondents. Check out the Flimp Viewer microsite for the Hillary Clinton National Voter Passion Survey.
Future forward, there will be more RezTech VoterTrends passion surveys covering other presidential candidates. As of now, we can look forward to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

Resonance Technologies and Flimp Media are "apolitical and do not support or receive funds from any of the candidates running for President." For more information about the companies, check out Flimp.net and ResonanceTechnologies.net

Post CNN-YouTube Debate Poll: Hillary Clinton Nearly 2-1 Favorite

In the most recent Poll following the Cnn-YouTube Democratic debate, a Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll is showing Hillary Clinton's numbers climbing and Barack Obama's numbers falling.
via Reuters:

Forty-three percent of Democratic respondents said they preferred the New York senator and former first lady over other Democratic candidates in the 2008 contest, up from 39 percent in June, the poll showed.

That put Clinton even farther ahead of chief rival Obama, the Illinois senator who slipped from 25 percent in the June poll to 22 percent in July. Clinton and Obama have sparred in recent weeks, trading accusations last week over foreign policy positions.

The poll surveyed 1,005 adults from Friday to Sunday and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

Those polled cited Clinton's experience and competence highest among her positive attributes.

Lousy Republican Web Campaigns, Finally Statistics To Back It Up

Patrick Ruffini for techPresident wrote a killer article reinforcing our previous and obvious statements that the Republicans just can't keep up with net campaigning. You can see our take on QubeTV and John McCain. According to Patrick's article, Republicans invest just as much in the web as Democrats, but not nearly as much in their web staffs. Web staffs of course being young savvy folk that create effective content. Rather, most of their money goes to technical outsourcing instead of internal staffers. He backs this up with a very interesting spreadsheet. Here are some highlights:

While Republicans and Democrats are spending almost equally on their Web efforts, Democrats are spending dramatically more on in-house staff. Approximately 36% of the Democrats' Web budgets are dedicated to staff, while less than 8% of the Republican budgets are. Overall, the Democratic candidates have 39 people working in the Web departments while Republicans have 18, spread over 9 active candidates. That works out to an average of 5.6 staffers per candidate on the Democrat side, and just 2 on the Republican side, encompassing both frontrunners and also-rans. Obama alone has 10 people on his Web staff... and it shows.

And:

Why is this important? Because it shows Republicans are largely outsourcing their Web operations to highly capable technical firms but don't have the boots on the ground to drive content, marketing ideas, and ensure that the effort stays relentlessly in synch with the campaign's message. It ensures that Republican innovation on the Web will continue to be more about applications rather than brilliant new ideas that get press, driving traffic and the self-reinforcing perception that a candidate has the momentum online.

Keep reading at techPresident.com

YouChoose 08' Stats of the Week

In looking at the latest YouChoose stats, we can plainly see that Barrack Obama leads the pack with a robust 11 Million channel views - a full 8.6 Million more than the next closest candidate. We still don't know how this will translate to votes, but in the meantime in an environment where buzz and press make all the difference in the world, we have to assume that the interest online will have some impact and/or correlation with outcome. The latest YouChoose stats are as follows:

Barrack Obama has 11 Million channel views and 9,400 subscribers
Ron Paul has 2.4 Million channel views and 22,000 subscribers

Hillary Clinton has 770,000 channel views and 4,900 subscribers
Mitt Romney has 690,000 channel views and 2,600 subscribers

John Edwards has 590,000 channel views and 3,500 subscribers
Rudy Giuliani has 585,000 channel views and 2,000 subscribers

Bill Richardson has 520,000 channel views and 1,300 subscribers
John McCain has 450,000 channel views and 1,400 subscribers

Joe Biden has 260,000 channel views and 1,000 subscribers
Mike Gravel has 200,000 channel views and 1,900 subscribers

YouChoose 08' Stats of the Week

The current standings on YouTube's YouChoose 08' viral platform is as follows:

Barack Obama: 3.4 Million Channel Views and 8500 Subscribers
Ron Paul: 1.2 Million Channel Views and 18,500 Subscribers
Hillary Clinton: 724,000 Channel views and 4400 Subscribers
Mitt Romney: 660,000 Channel views and 2300 Subscribers
John Edwards: 570,000 Channel views and 3200 Subscribers
John McCain: 440,000 Channel views and 1400 Subscribers
Dennis Kucinich: 420,000 Channel views and 2000 Subscribers
Rudy Giuliani: 103,000 Channel views and 1600 Subscribers

Despite Barack leading handily in this little snapshot of voter interest, I'm going to play the video that most stood out to me - John McCain's featured video of him at Nascar events. Clearly, he's trying to reach his constituency by showing his interest and support in the good ol' boy's world of Nascar racing. I think its smart. Dry, dense message clips aren't what anyone wants to see out there. Other candidates should learn from McCain on this one.

As a note to you non-race car fans out there, Nascar has grown to become the second-most popular pro-"sport" in terms of US television ratings, ranking behind only the NFL. Internationally,races are broadcast in over 150 countries and it boasts 75 million fans. (uh, dang..!) Check the video out here:

Hillary Clinton Traffic Spike

Here's a look at the Hillaryclinton.com traffic statistics following the release of The Sopranos commercial.

This chart is Hillary Clinton's Alexa traffic ranking. Alexa ranks the top 100,000 trafficked websites. Prior to releasing the Sopranos video, she was sitting in the bottom 100,000. Upon releasing the video, her traffic spiked her to roughly the top 2,000.


This traffic graph shows the hillaryclinton.com velocity, which is a measure of relative growth or deviation.
Finally, we're looking at the time spent at hillaryclinton.com by visitors. You can see that the time required to watch the Sopranos video has multiplied average visitor attention by roughly 12 times. The video is a minute and thirty seconds long. If we were to assume that visitors watch the video and leave, that would suggest that an average visit prior to the Sopranos video was 1/12 of that or 7.5 seconds long. Considering that entering hillaryclinton.com requires at least one click to bypass an email sign-up box, I think it's unlikely that the 7.5 seconds number is accurate. That would suggest that the Sopranos video prompts further browsing of the site, which would mean that it's not only been effective in creating buzz but also in getting people to learn more about Hillary.

Barack Obama In YouTube YouChoose Spotlight, Goes After Young People

The moment we've all been waiting for has arrived. Barack Obama is finally in the YouTube YouChoose Spotlight. Going after the youngsters, Obama discusses how we've lost touch with politics and asks young people to talk about what they're doing on a neighborhood level. Going into his time in the Spotlight, Barack Obama is clocking in with 6637 YouTube Channel Subscribers and 2,890,525 Channel Views. We'll be keeping an eye on these statistics on a daily basis. Here's the video (Nice face, by the way):

Voter Fatigue is Lame

There are 18 declared Republican and Democratic contenders, so far... which in my mind is not nearly enough. I wanna see 30+ contenders, stranded on an island, put through an American Gladiator-esqe maze-o-death with guns that shoot tennis balls and as they are forced to debate the merits of stem cell research and immigration law...I cannot get enough of these guys! But, there are others... The feeble, the weak. The ones that need a summer break from the candidates. I poop on their weakness.

Although... despite my immaturity and blind enthusiasm, I am not without self evaluation.

Let's think about this for a second. Am I off base for pooping? Is there really candidate interest fatigue? Or is it a broader systemic apathy towards our political machine?

A mere 3 million people watched the debates recently...a minuscule number compared to the 70 million that watched the Kennedy / Nixon debate in 1960.

In 1960 we had 179 Million people in the US. Today, we have 300 Million. Which means, in 1960, 39% watched the debate and today 1% are watching. Geez. Even if we are busy with Xbox, Sopranos finales and MySpacing...isn't this an overly pronounced drop off in relative interest? I'd say the answer is yes. Yes, there is systemic apathy, but I'd also argue that the driven minority of us shouldn't stop buzzing on our government. There is just too much drama in these candidates.

The parallel question is: Will online buzz and subsequent online voting effect future voter turnout. If we don't have enough energy to drive to a polling place and stand in line, will we have just enough motivation to make a few clicks? I'd argue that we'll see a return to our voter turnout prominence once we make it easier to vote. We'll see.

Read more from a proper journalist on voter fatigue HERE.

Stat Watch: Ron Paul Most Popular Candidate On YouTube, Clinton Leads Polls By 9 Points

Ever since the Republican Candidates debated on May 3rd, Ron Paul has rocketed in popularity. He actually has twice the YouTube channel subscriptions as Barack Obama. Check it out: In non-viral news, Hillary Clinton is polling at 35%, 9 points ahead of Barack Obama. John Edwards has trailed out of significance to 14%.

As for the Republicans, Rudy Giuliani maintains a 25% share while Mitt Romney has nipped John McCain by a point, 16% and 15% respectively. Ron Paul is still not tracking in Rasmussen data, which we think is a mistake.

Iowa Polls Put Edwards and Romney Ahead Of The Pack

In a recent Iowa poll the numbers came back looking strikingly different from the widely acknowledged national polls.

John Edwards leads the Democrats with 29%, with Barack Obama courting 23% and Hillary Clinton in third at 21%. Interestingly enough though, it is Hillary who leads in most national Democratic polls.

On the GOP side, Mitt Romney has taken the lead with an impressive 30% of the vote in Iowa. McCain is in second at 18%, and Giuliani is in third with 17%. And again, nationally there is a discrepancy with Giuliani or McCain holding the lead in most polls.

Will there be a convergence with these figures as we get closer to the election? Will the Iowa figures keep lesser supported candidates in the race and railroad the plans of the better supported rock stars? Will Iowa come around and follow the lead of the National opinions or will the Nation wide voters adjust towards middle America?

We'll keep monitoring...

Check out the figures here.

Frontrunner Round Up

Front runner homepage traffic statistics for both political parties:


Democratic front runner traffic rank comparison over the last week:

Republican front runner traffic rank comparison over the last week (note: McCain's traffic is too low to register.):

Congress Approval Down to 29%; Bush Approval Steady at 33%

At times, I feel we give our government a free pass in the way we evaluate their performance. We should expect more from our Nation State. Let's for a moment look at the numbers from another perspective:

64% of America disapprove of Congress
62% of America disapprove of Bush

Read the thorough report here.