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%.

by WonkoKevin

Wonkosphere buzz share now stands roughly equivalent to the delegate share that each of the candidates have:

Obama 52% (pledged) delegates, 53% (liberal) buzz share

Clinton 48% delegates, 47% buzz share

McCain 73% delegates, 72% (conservative) buzz share

Huckabee 18% delegates, 15% buzz share

Paul 1% delegates, 9% buzz share

This is really quite an interesting development for Politics 2.0. It suggests that the political blogosphere as a collective is allocating attention in a contest-by-contest manner. Before the primaries began, the blogosphere led public opinion by two or three weeks; now the blogosphere is tightly coupled to the one thing that now matters most: the delegate count. Pat yourself on the back blogosphere, you’re rational, adaptive, efficient, and self-organizing–a true smart mob!

by WonkoKevin

John McCain has reached new heights in conservative Wonkosphere buzz, clocking in at 58% yesterday, compared to Romney’s 28%.  The race, as far as conservative bloggers are concerned, is down to McCain v. Romney, as they cornered 86% of all their attention.  Ditto is happening on the liberal side, with Clinton and Obama accounting for 85% of liberal buzz and 60% of total buzz after Obama’s overwhelming win in South Carolina.   McCain’s 58% is the highest one-day conservative buzz share we have seen this campaign season, beating Ron Paul’s 50% level which he hit in November.  Buzz share is a zero-sum game, so if McCain is surging it must mean others are hurting, and indeed they are.  Mike Huckabee’s drop is the most shocking, as he’s gone from a respectable 20% ten days ago to 3%.  Three percent!  Huckabee’s rode the blogosphere buzz train into the MSM spotlight, so this decline is likely a death march into Ignoredom.  Rudy Giuliani, who had spent five days above 10%, fell to 6%, and Ron Paul has been under 10% for the last three weeks.  The conservative blogosphere is now McCain’s to lose. 

by WonkoKevin

Conservative bloggers for Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani woke up yesterday, stealing Wonkosphere buzz share from the other candidates.  Thompson’s conservative buzz share spiked to 18%–still not dominant–while Giuliani was above 10% (barely) for the second day in a row.  Does Giuliani’s movement upwards signify a trend.? Don’t think so.  As I predicted in mid-December, Giuliani won’t get bloggers attention again until after he wins something.  Giuliani’s buzz share was as constant at 20% for months and months, so 10% now is only half what is has been most of the campaign.  Who did Fred and Rudy steal buzz from?  Mostly John McCain and Mitt Romney, who each fell 5%.  Huckabee continues to be under 15% and Paul below 10%, so McCain and Romney still dominate conservative attention.

by WonkoKevin

While John McCain maintained a strong lead over Mitt Romney in conservative buzz share yesterday 40-23%, most of Wonkosphere turned attention to the South Carolina Democratic debate, and more specifically, the sparring between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Liberals and conservatives alike are gobbling up the good political meat–over 50% of the buzz this morning is about Obama and Clinton. Edwards was the third wheel, as his buzz share plummeted to the critical 10% level. On the Republican side, conservative buzz is very definitely concentrating. Giuliani was above 10% buzz for the first time in a long, long time, but it was almost all due to a Florida poll showing McCain now in front of Giuliani. Fred Thompson is also still in the buzz dumps, and poll at Townhall shows that a vast majority of Thompson supporters would go to Romney instead of McCain or Huckabee if Fred were to drop out. (P.S. Who gets the Duncan Hunter supporters? I imagine Romney too…) Huckabee was below 20% conservative buzz for the third straight day, and what the heck happened to Ron Paul’s bloggers? He’s been at 10% conservative buzz or below now for ten straight days.

by WonkoKevin

John McCain built a significant lead in Wonkosphere buzz share over the last 24 hours, leading Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama 28-18%. Part of that came from liberal bloggers–42% of their attention to Republicans was focused on McCain yesterday. Conservative bloggers also focused on McCain strongly. McCain led in conservative buzz share yesterday with 43%, followed by Huckabee (18%), Romney (15%), Giuliani (8%), Paul (7%), Thompson (6%), and Duncan Hunter, who announced he was dropping out, at 5%. Amongst Democrats, Obama led in liberal buzz share at 42%, ahead of Clinton (36%) and Edwards (22%).

by WonkoKevin

My predictions for the caucus and primary today are not based on any Wonkosphere hard data; as I’ve mentioned before, I think we’ve gone past the point where blogs are either future-predictive or insightful to the mood of a particular primary state, like Nevada or South Carolina. This may change come Tsunami Tuesday… My instinct is Clinton and Romney in Nevada, and Huckabee in South Carolina. The worry from Huck’s camp is snow in the northern area of the state where he is strongest. I could go on to say, “A McCain victory will mean…” or “If Edwards can get over 20% in Nevada…”, but I won’t. Who the heck knows anymore? Much to my (and probably your) delight, the electorate doesn’t seem to want the primaries to end. They’re not ready to select. When I talk to conservatives and liberals alike, they seem to change their mind daily about who they will pull the lever for. I myself change day by day–I don’t have anyone’s sign in my yard (I’m in Arizona, which votes Feb 5) because my wife and I can’t stay with our choice for more than two days in a row! As Chuck Todd at MSNBC said yesterday, March 4 may be the big day, when Texas and Ohio vote. According to USAElectionPolls, an IVR poll conducted on November 8 gave Clinton a 51-17 advantage in Texas, while the same poll gave Giuliani a slight but unsafe lead–basically it’s a toss-up on the Republican side. A December 1 Quinnipiac University poll gave Clinton a 45-19 lead over Obama in Ohio, and Giuliani a 29-13 lead over McCain. Of course, these are all pre- Obama and McCain and Huckabee and Romney wins, so those polls might not mean much now.

by WonkoKevin

Congrats to Mitt Romney on a win last night in Michigan. I didn’t do too well with the predictions, although I do have a hedge. I did say that I wouldn’t be surprised by Romney 34 McCain 31, only Romney got more because the 10% I predicted for Giuliani, Paul, and Thompson didn’t show up. Romney seems to have found his voice when talking economics in Michigan, and this can be a winning hand–the economy has risen to the top of voters’ concerns. But will the Romney campaign realize they have a strength there and concentrate on generating excitement? Or will they continue to spend time and money on the attack? Last night’s pre-emption of McCain’s speech would seem to indicate the latter. In my opinion that would be a waste of time. It looks like everybody’s going to stay viable at some level thru Tsunami Tuesday, and with perhaps no one being way ahead by then, TV time will be critically important. According to Financial Week, Romney is financially positioned far better than the other candidates. McCain is starving for cash, he doesn’t appeal to economy voters, and a win in SC is not likely to bring about enough cash quickly enough to catch up with the others. If Romney focused on a positive economic message, combined with his war chest this could lead to Minneapolis. But I wouldn’t bet on it yet…

by WonkoKevin

They’re not ignoring him–yet–but conservative and liberal bloggers alike have turned negative on Ron Paul.  It’s the same pattern as we saw in Wonkosphere with Mike Huckabee: positive on the personality and ideology, negative on the policies.  So once specific policies start getting unearthed, bloggers attack.  I also think that fans of the other candidates are negative on the votes that Paul is taking (and will continue to take) in the primaries.  Who would Paul voters vote for if he weren’t in?  I suppose Thompson’s federalism is as close to Paul’s libertarianism as any, but I think for the most part that these voters would otherwise be staying home.

The graph below shows the tone of posts about Paul over the past 14 days (conservative=red and liberal=blue).  The grey band represents the mean (for that day) plus and minus one standard deviation, so if you’re below the band it means the tone is significantly negative.  Further, our experience shows anything less than 0.10 is trouble.  At this point, I think Paul is going to pull 5-10% in any primary he runs in.  I don’t see it going up or down, regardless of blogger buzz to the contrary. 

by WonkoKevin

Bloggers have turned Wonkosphere into a love fest as sentiments go positive, especially amongst conservative bloggers.  Mitt Romney’s buzz was at the head of the pack in terms of positive tone, and posts about both John McCain and Mike Huckabee have also been very significantly positive over the past four days.  On the Dem side, posts about Barack Obama’s have been super positive over the last three days.

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