Presidential Candidate MySpace Friends
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James Joyner | Wednesday, April 25, 2007 |
The folks at techPresident are tracking the number of MySpace friends for all the presidential candidates. Below are screen captures of the trends for both parties through today.
No real surprise for the Democrats. Obama is, as has been widely reported, in the lead. Still, his support continues to climb at a much higher rate than that of his opponents.
Now, look at the Republicans:
69-year-old John McCain has almost as many “friends” as all the other GOP contenders combined. (Granted, he has far fewer than John Edwards, who is a distant third on the Democratic side.) What’s particularly interesting is that he’s surged in the last several days to achieve that position. Maybe there has been a concerted effort on the social media front in anticipation of today’s official announcement that he’s in the race?
I remain skeptical that any of this matters for 2008, especially on the GOP front. Does anyone really think Ron Paul–who was leading the pack until a week or so ago–is a serious contender? Or that Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter are more popular and better organized than Rudy Giuliani?
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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I am one of many voters who will not sign up as "friend" for any candidate. Using this as a measure of anything political seems to be a stretch. Especially this far away from the election.
It's probably a better indicator for the dems than the GOP so far. Given that the dems are looking at 10x as many myspace "friends" that means the networking there is a bigger slice of the overall electorate involved. For the GOP, with their minimal showing in this (very niche) area it probably won;t matter at all.
Oh, and I'd guess McCain's sudden spike is a sham. How hard would it be to pay some staffer to make a couple thousand fake pages to be your "friends"? probably all the candidates do it to some extent but what other reason could there be for McCain's sudden popularity? It's not like he's done anything but embarrass himself recently (Baghdad market anyone?)
Reminds me of when my niece and nephew were arguing who had more friends. The measurement used? The number of nicknames in their AOL Instant Messenger Buddy Lists. I reminded them that I have three different AIM accounts.
Me thinks that the various campaigns are paying a bit of money for someone to create friends for their candidate's MySpace account. A definite waste of money.
Too bad those fake "Friends" won't translate into votes.
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