How Dems get attention
by WonkoKevin
Even though Wonkosphere has only been around one month, we’ve been tracking data since June and so have been able to see lots of patterns emerge in terms of what gets attention from bloggers. Here’s a summary on how each Democratic candidate gets attention, especially from liberal bloggers.
None of the Dems appear to get any bump from the debates anymore; this is very different from the Republicans, where Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee have gotten significant increases in buzz share post-debate, and where John McCain’s performance in the most previous debate revived a sagging campaign.
Hillary Clinton gets attention no matter what, but especially when she steers more left than center on something.
John Edwards gets attention by drawing clear lines between himself and Clinton, and can get attention regardless of what he’s doing when he says what he says.
Barack Obama gets attention by being bold and being suggestive of non-partisanship. His problem is that he tends to get more attention when he shows up at big national events (e.g. talking to Wall Street or to a union) than when he is doing state-level campaigning.
Joe Biden and Chris Dodd seem to get the biggest attention boost–and it can be big!–when they show up on MSM. My advice to them would be to do talk shows 24-7.
Bill Richardson is the odd one to figure out. Of all candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, his poll numbers are a lot bigger than his buzz share numbers; he is the opposite of Ron Paul in that regard.
Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel can’t seem to get any attention, although Gravel’s appearance on Bill Maher was good for a couple of hot days on YouTube.
Summary advice to candidates–Hillary should play to the far-left for now without giving too much ammunition for the general campaign; John should continue to draw sharp distinctions; Barack should continue to look for events which make him look presidential; Joe and Chris should live on talk show sets; Bill should get some Web 2.0 savviness; and Dennis and Mike should obsessively seek out a youth audience.
