by WonkoKevin

Here’s a summary of what’s happening in Wonkosphere… ObaMo increases; his buzz share amongst liberal bloggers continued what is now a six-day upwards trend, and he is over the 40% line. Clinton’s buzz share remained constant but the tone of discourse about her was significantly lower than the average. Edwards continued to be down, below the 20% level; he seems to have lost about 1/5th of his buzz since Iowa. For the Republicans, John McCain continues a slow but steady climb in buzz share, up for the 5th straight day and now over the critical 20% level. Huckabee appears to have gotten no buzz share bounce from the Iowa win, and Mitt Romney’s tone from conservatives was below average for the 10th straight day. Fred Thompson has not moved, but I do note that many of the most influential conservative blogs were declaring him the winner in last night’s debate.

by WonkoKevin

Why is everyone ignoring the Wyoming Republican caucus results? In a state where only a few candidates came to visit, Mitt Romney won 8 delegates, Fred Thompson won 3, and Duncan Hunter won 1. The Wonkosphere appears to be uninterested in these results, but I think they should because they hint at the linkage between Iowa and New Hampshire, or the lack thereof. First, Huckabee got zero. Perhaps it is unreasonable to expect a bounce in 2 days, but conversely, Wyoming conservatives didn’t seem to care about Romney’s second versus first place finish. Second, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul, who had visited there, got zero. Even though Paul is running a national campaign, I think this demonstrates there will be geographic pockets where he isn’t on the radar. Third, Fred Thompson picked up a couple. I imagine the Wonkosphere will give Fred a pass on his performance in New Hampshire and place heavy expectations on him in South Carolina, regardless of the New Hampshire outcome.

by WonkoKevin

Our two Iowa winners have a lot in common.  Obama and Huckabee are the youngest candidate in their parties; both are considered relative outsiders; both are considered candid; both set themselves apart from the current and previous administrations; both are probably not the first pick of their party’s command center; both are (or at least, were) not the darling of their wing’s Wonkosphere; both have little foreign policy experience; and both are considered likeable, trustworthy, and idealistic.  But to me, the Numero Uno reason that both won yesterday is that they are the best communicators within their respective parties.  When you combine the retail politics of Politics 1.0 with the real-time nature of Politics 2.0, there is one skill that branches both–communication.  Obama and Huckabee won because they can talk to people the best. (more…)

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

I can’t believe today has finally arrived!  I’ve been blogging daily about the campaign for five months and obsessing about it much longer.  Just as this represents a change point for the remaining candidates, so too it is a change point for bloggers, news writers, and political junkies.  No more conjecture–now we will have results.  The fact that both races are basically toss-ups is a realization of the wish WonkoSteve and I had back last February when we started working on Wonkosphere. 

I’ll present the latest Wonkosphere data in the next post, and see if there are any tea leaves that might gives us a hint as to what might happen today.  First I wanted to share some of the wonderful photography happening out on the campaign trail in Iowa.  Go below the fold for more. (more…)

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

On November 20 I wrote a blog “Do conservative bloggers even care who is running?” The premise was based on the fact that in that day’s current Wonkosphere buzz (which is an automatically-generated set of the most representative posts made that day), all twenty posts–every single one–was about Hillary Clinton. Many were from Against Hillary, and Below the Beltway had a prescient post (Will Iowa be Hillary’s Stumbling Block?). Today for the first time in memory the conservative buzz contains no posts about Clinton. It’s all about Huckabee and Romney and McCain, with a dash of Thompson (Rudy who?). The assassination of Bhutto, which was predicted to be favorable to McCain, has also been favorable to Romney, both gaining from Huckabee’s curious comments on illegal Pakastani immigrants. While national sentiment continues to swing to Huckabee, it lags by several weeks the sentiment in the blogs, and that doesn’t look good for Huck–the tone about him from conservative blogs has hit another low point. We continue to move to Minneapolis in “prefect storm” conditions. On the Democratic side, the polls and the buzz share data continue to predict Iowa as tied, with the mo on the side of Edwards. Jerome Armstrong at MyDD has some great data on how the three candidates have invested in an Iowa win.

Fred Thompson takes a walking tour of Sheldon, Iowa, December 28, 2007.

Image by Fred Thompson, all rights reserved.

by WonkoKevin

In previous posts we’ve discussed how changes in Wonkosphere buzz share are predictive of changes in national poll numbers 2-3 weeks hence.  With Iowa less than one week away, however, a 2-3 week-ahead prediction doesn’t do much good.  And because of the impending January 3 date, everything is in hyperspeed now.  So we need to look for other clues in the data.  What we find is that the buzz share numbers in the conservative blogosphere largely mimic the current national polling numbers, while the buzz share numbers in the liberal blogosphere largely mimic the current poll numbers coming out of New Hampshire. (more…)

by WonkoKevin

Back to the tea leaves, this time to predict the Republican Iowa caucus, now less than 12 days away.  Most of our scenarios have Mike Huckabee winning; that would be a tough one to bet against now.  Ditto, Mitt Romney in second.  Both polling and Wonkosphere data seem to support this 1-2 finish.  How much by, and who comes in third and fourth and last is much more difficult to predict.  (more…)