by WonkoKevin

Iowa and New Hampshire were key. Always have been. Until they were over, and then South Carolina was the turning point. And then Tsunami Tuesday was the non-turning point. I think somewhere along the way Maine and Wyoming were important. What can we make of this campaign season that continues to refuse to conform? In Politics 1.0, averages and totals were the key stats–how many votes, how many delegates, etc. In Politics 2.0, it’s not the averages that define where things are going but rather the extremes. In old politics, the center wagged the extremes; in new politics, the extremes wag the average. When it comes to extremes this campaign season, one place in the U.S. dominates–the Inner West. Maybe we should look to the Inner West for where the body politic is heading.

The Inner West of the U.S. handed many of the candidates their best results of the season. In Utah, Mitt Romney won an astonishing 90%. Ron Paul had his best showing in Montana, at 25%. Barack Obama loves Iowa, which handed him a 79% victory. Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee were big shots in the South, but it was the central plains where they brought it home–Thompson with 25% in Wyoming and Huckaee with 60% in Kansas (equalling what he got in Arkansas, his home state). Even Duncan Hunter had his best outing in the Inner West with 2% in Nevada.

There were several other patterns I observed. First, the South gave two of the three remaining candidates their biggest wins. Hillary Clinton pulled down 70% in Arkansas, and John McCain’s biggest victory to date came in Mississippi (79%). Delaware awarded hometome boy Joe Biden his best showing (3%); Michigan’s shortened list resulted in best outings for Chris Dodd (1%), Mike Gravel (0.5%), and and Dennis Kucinich (4%); John Edwards (30% in Iowa) and Bill Richardson (5% in New Hampshire) faded early; and Rudy Giuliani really did do his best in Florida, just like he had planned (15%). Alan Keyes, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, and Tommy Thompson didn’t register above 0.5%.

More thoughts on the Iowa results in a bit.  I think today’s Wonkosphere buzz share graph, comprising conservative and liberal blogs posts from 9PM EST Thursday January 3 to 9AM EST Friday January 4, pretty well sums up the post-Iowa spin, numbers-wise.

by WonkoKevin

Joe Biden was only mentioned in 82 liberal blogs yesterday, compared to the 290 liberal blog posts which mentioned Hillary Clinton. Yet Clinton’s overall Wonkosphere liberal buzz share (23%) was not even twice Biden’s (12%). How could Biden’s buzz share be so much relatively higher, per post? It’s because of the way we calculate buzz share, and it demonstrates that Biden is being talked about much more substantively in the posts that do mention him, whereas Clinton is being mentioned (relatively) more in passing. The same perspective is also positive to Romney, Thompson, Edwards, and Obama, and negative to Giuliani and Paul.

(more…)

by WonkoKevin

So who had a good week in Wonkosphere? I looked at buzz share changes from the week of December 1-7 to the week of December 8-14. Winners were Chris Dodd (because of his threatening to filibuster the FISA bill), Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama (no surprises), and hold your breathe, Fred Thompson. Yep, with a couple of evangelical endorsements, Thompson’s buzz share shot up to a more respectful 10% last week; we’ll see if it lasts. John Edwards and John McCain both lost buzz share, not a good indicator of positive movement. This upcoming week is really the start of the phase were television advertising starts coming into play big time, so look for a lot of buzz from Clinton, Obama and Romney, and we’ll see how much $$ Huck has been able to raise in the last month.

Wonkosphere.com reports that Mike Huckabee and John Edwards were the most likable presidential candidates amongst their constituents in the month of November, followed closely by Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Barack Obama, and Chris Dodd. Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton were the two leading candidates who had the most negative buzz from conservative and liberal bloggers, respectively.

(more…)

by WonkoKevin

IAAI.  It’s all about Iowa.  So what’s the recent buzz in our bellweather state?

The Des Moines Register is oft-cited as a key influencer.  The Register acts as a multiplier to a candidate’s grassroots efforts.  If they pay attention to you, so will others, including national MSM.  In order to get a hint as to who might be hot–and not–in Iowa, Wonkosphere counted up the number of candidate-focused stories in the Register from 10/27/2007 to 11/9/2007.  Here are the results:

1. Barack Obama, 11

2. Chris Dodd, 10

3. Bill Richardson, 9

4. John McCain, 7

4. Hillary Clinton, 7

4. John Edwards, 7

7. Mike Huckabee, 5

8. Mitt Romney, 4

9. Ron Paul, 4

9. Rudy Giuliani, 4

11. Joe Biden, 1

Not mentioned: Mike Gravel, Duncan Hunter, Alan Keyes, Dennis Kucinich, Tom Tancredo, and Fred Thompson.

Wonkosphere.com buzz share results for October suggest that Barack Obama will gain ground on Hillary Clinton in national polls over the next few weeks, and Chris Dodd will also move up. The results also predict that Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney will begin to pull away from Fred Thompson.

(PRWEB) November 7, 2007 — Wonkosphere.com reports that voter sentiment seems to be pushing the Republican and Democratic races in opposite directions. “The Republican race, which has been very fluid, appears to be shaping up to be a fight between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Fred Thompson lost 50% of his buzz share amongst conservative bloggers in October, and that’s not a good sign,” said Steve Corman of Wonkosphere. “On the Democratic side, buzz share results suggest that Barack Obama is going to moderately cut into Hillary Clinton’s lead in national poll numbers over the next few weeks.”

The predictions come from Wonkosphere.com, a new web service that uses patented technology to track and analyze over 1200 political blogs. Wonkosphere’s buzz share is calculated every four hours and measures how much bloggers are talking about a particular candidate. In October, Ron Paul led all Republican candidates with 16% buzz share amongst conservative bloggers, repeating his win in September. Rudy Giuliani was second with 13%, followed by Mitt Romney (11%), Fred Thompson (7%), Mike Huckabee (6%), and John McCain (4%).

“Total buzz share doesn’t tell the whole picture though,” said Wonkosphere’s Kevin Dooley. “We have found that it’s not the absolute amount of buzz share that matters, but rather the change in buzz share which is predictive of movement in the national poll numbers. So while Ron Paul won October, he was at the same level of buzz share in September, so we don’t expect his national poll numbers to move. Conversely, Giuliani and Romney both gained buzz share in October, so we expect them to gain in polls, almost exclusively at the expense of Fred Thompson.”

Amongst liberal bloggers, Hillary Clinton (21%) won buzz share in October, followed by Barack Obama (16%), John Edwards (13%), Joe Biden (6%), and Chris Dodd (5%). Comparing these results to September, Wonkosphere predicts that Obama will gain ground on Clinton, Edwards will lose some ground, and Chris Dodd will begin to look like the front-runner for viable “fourth choice”.

All-purpose candidate Stephen Colbert made a dent in the Wonkosphere with the announcement of his South Carolina-only, two-party bid. Taking into account his late entry, Colbert had more buzz share amongst liberal bloggers than Al Gore, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel. Amongst conservative bloggers, Colbert got more share of buzz than Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Newt Gingrich, and Alan Keyes.

Technology makes measuring buzz share easy
The buzz share results come from Wonkosphere.com, a new web site which tracks and analyzes over 1200 political blogs each day. Patented technology from Arizona State University (ASU) is used to measure each candidate’s buzz share, as well as whether bloggers are ranting or raving about the candidate. Wonkosphere is operated by Crawdad Technologies, a new venture started by Corman and Dooley, who are also professors at ASU. “We knew that the 2008 political campaign would be influenced in unpredictable ways by the Internet,” said Dooley. “We created Wonkosphere.com as a way to give millions of political blog readers a way to stay on top of what was happening across the whole political blogosphere.”

“Technology allows us to keep track of hundreds of times more blogs than any individual has time to read,” added Corman, “and it also allows the analysis to be completely unbiased, so that we can report what’s going on in a truly non-partisan fashion.”

About Wonkosphere
Wonkosphere is designed for bloggers, media, political activists, and political junkies who need to stay on top of the 2008 Presidential race but can’t spend all day searching for the hottest and most relevant material. Wonkosphere has been highlighted by such outlets as USA Today, US News & World Report, Information Week, WIRED Online, MyDD, Andrew Sullivan, Lew Rockwell, Hugh Hewitt, and Reformed Chicks Blabbing. Wonkosphere provides an analysis of the political buzz that is timely and unbiased, made possible by tracking and analyzing over 1200 blogs and web sites per day with its patented text analysis technology. This technology measures each candidate’s buzz share and tone, and highlights the most representative and linked posts. Wonkosphere is a wholly-owned service of Crawdad Technologies, LLC. www.Wonkosphere.com

by WonkoKevin

There’s an interesting and not-all-too surprising story in the NYT about how Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, both long-time senators and Democratric presidential candidates, seem to have a pact to support one another.  Here’s the original tidbit from the Boston Globe describing a back-to-back appearance: “The two Democratic senators greeted each other warmly, and Dodd, a Connecticut lawmaker, introduced his sister, Caroline Dodd, to his colleague from Delaware.  Biden leaned in and said conspiratorially, “By the way, I’m for him. If I can’t make it, I’m for him.”

(more…)

by WonkoKevin

Barack Obama might have come out of Tuesday’s debate with a pundit-proclaimed minor victory, but the Wonkosphere as a whole didn’t seem to see it that way.  Obama, who overtook Hillary Clinton for buzz share amongst liberal bloggers on Monday (first time in a long time), plunged 17 percentage points between Tuesday and Wednesday.  John Edwards, Clinton, and Joe Biden came out with fairly significant buzz share increases.  Dennis Kucinich lost a point, even with the UFO (and impeachment) remarks.  Here’s a summary of who went up and down yesterday, post debate:

Edwards +7

Clinton +5

Biden +5

Dodd +1

Kucinich -1

Richardson -3

Obama -17

Watching the debate, I thought Clinton was playing shutout as a goaltender and then flubbed it with seconds to go.  The “license driver” exchange then in turn caused MSM and pundits to recast the entire debate as one of Clinton fending off questions, turning a win into a loss.  I would be surprised if this hurt her in upcoming IA or NH polls, but it certainly is a messy topic in the general election.  OTOH, Edwards’ effectiveness on Tuesday will help him slow down some of the negative momentum he’s had over the last few weeks.  Obama?  He was thrown a softball down the middle of the plate with the first question on Tuesday, and he laid down a sacrifice bunt.  Gotta go for the homer dude!

Photo by IowaPolitics.com, all rights reserved.