Part of the point of Off The Bus is to offer an alternative to the lazy horse-race mentality of the media establishment covering the '08 presidential election.
It is my goal here to OUT-LAZY them. I am offering up a high-tech, low-effort, totally unscientific snapshot of how the 40 million members of Facebook would vote in an imaginary primary involving all of the current candidates.
Let's find out what the kids in my under-40 demographic are thinking about this election, since the polls are -- as we all know -- lame, not least of all because they call people on their land-line telephones, and who between the ages of 18 and thirtysomething has one of those anymore?
Why Facebook? Well, I just joined it the other day because someone told me to, and a social networking expert told me it's the coolest of its breed, the new "in" site. The over-25 set is its fastest-growing membership contingent. As a good citizen, I believe -- and do -- what I'm told. And, again, I am lazy, and Facebook is right there in front of my . . . face.
I started by polling my 50 or so Facebook friends on who they'd vote for (excepting the journalists, who I figure don't want to say). I'll tell you at the bottom of this article how that went.
Also, I know who I'd vote for, but I won't reveal it today (like you care anyway). Let's just say I'm a one-issue voter and leave it at that. It's not the issue you think, though.
Next I tallied up the numbers from the Politics groups at Facebook.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS: These groups often contain duplicate members. Also, when you do a plain search in "Groups" for each candidate with his or her name in quotes, it gives you a total number, but if you page through, that number includes many groups that are not specifically dedicated to that candidate. So it may say so-and-so has 100 groups, but in fact if you count the dedicated ones, it's only 60, 70 or 80. I did my best to be accurate.
Joe Biden has about 45 groups, including "Joe Biden for President (TWO million strong for Joe!)," which has 19 members. So I guess it's only got 1,999,981 new members to go! There are a few anti-Biden groups, such as the one-member "Joe Biden is a plagiarist. I will never vote for him" and the 13-member "I hate Joseph Biden and his teeth." There's also the very wryly named "Clean, Articulate, Nice-Looking Americans for Biden." Like the others, Biden has a sizable number of small "[State/Occupation] for Biden" groups.
Hillary Clinton's legendary divisiveness is on display, with anti-HRC groups appearing to far outnumber the pro-HRC ones. One of the many "If Hillary Clinton gets elected president I'll shoot myself!" groups has 689 members. Look for a rash of suicides in '08? "If Hillary wins, I'm moving to Canada" is another big theme. Look out, Canada! A bunch of Clinton-hating Americans is coming your way! One anti-Hillary group has 446,108 members. Then there's an "Against Anti-Hillarys" group. It says there are more than 500 Hillary groups, I didn't take the time to count them.
Chris Dodd has 16 groups dedicated exclusively to him with a combined membership of 919. Notably, none of the groups is anti-Dodd. Because why bother at this point.
Mike Gravel has 2,985 members in his main group, "Mike Gravel 2008." Make of that what you will. Another is called "Republicans for Gravel." He has about 70 small groups.
Dennis Kucinich has about 60 groups, and his main one has 3,413 members. My favorite is "Mrs. Kucinich, FLILF." FL stands for First Lady . . . the rest you can figure out (think "MILF").
"America for Bill Richardson" has 2,206 members. He has about 100 other groups.
Many of the groups for the various candidates propose running mates in their names, so you've got Gravel/Paul '08 (!!) and Gore/Richardson '08, for instance. A little premature/misguided? I guess it's like Fantasy Football.
Who am I forgetting?
Oh, yeah. John Edwards has 3,549 members in what appears to be his largest group, and, like with Hillary, it says he has 500+ groups. One is called "John Edwards' hair care products are destroying the ozone layer."
A lot of the group names, in case it's not clear by now, are highly tendentious, but entertaining, and represent topics of debate in and of themselves.
Who else am I forgetting?
Duh! "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)" comes closest of all the groups that aim to be a "million" strong to actually being so: 368,916 members. He also has 500+ groups dedicated to him.
Who else am I forgetting? Oh, of course! The Republicans! Tell you what: When they get some viable candidates, I'll do one of these on them, okay?
So, interestingly, the size of the presence of each of these candidates on Facebook, a site that as far as I know is not controlled by the mainstream media, tracks generally with the messages we get from the news/punditocracy about who has what chance of winning. The "top three" of the conventional wisdom all do, in fact, have 500+ groups.
Now back to my poll of my own friends: People are always fine with ignoring me, so I only got about 15 responses. They were: Barack Obama 6, John Edwards 2, Ron Paul 1, Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich 1, George W. "Four More Years!" Bush 1, Chris Dodd 1, Hillary Clinton or Chris Dodd 1, and dark horse write-in candidate Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R - Kansas) 1.
So who wins? I think if some sort of "Facebook primary" were held tomorrow, for sheer numbers of "voters" it would be Barack Obama. He has the hundreds of thousands of supporters without the hundreds of thousands of detractors that Hillary has. Also, he dominated in the poll of my Facebook friends.
But I can't say what this snapshot means so early in the campaign. What do you think?
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Oh yes, another thing........high negatives mean nothing.......consider the extremely high negatives of GW Bush.
Looking again at the Obama results, there are some anti-Barack groups, too. Just not as many as Hillary.
Great idea to look at Facebook groups to gauge what the hip are thinking. I wouldn't be surprised if Tim Russert steals your idea.
I've always taken polls with a grain of salt.
I don't think the '08 election is going to make any real change so I might join the group "I Don't Care Who Wins the 2008 Election."
You know who polls are forgetting? Single mothers and working women - too busy working to be polled......and they'll vote Hillary all the way.........
Go Hillary!
If Obama pulls this nomination out of his hat, it will be the biggest upset in the history of modern day "polling".
The polls and the media have already assigned Hillary the winner. But all the other evidence I see points to Barack having the largest number of supporters and admirers.
I hope the polls are wrong.
Obama doesn't have the baggage and he's definitely got the brains.
Hillary has Black Water under her bridges
--end of story.
We still have to make sure everyone votes!
It seems obvious that you will not be voting for HRC your bias shows like a beacon in the night, by the way are you a gay white divisive male
FREEDOMS FRIENDS,PLEASE GO ON HRC'S PAGE WITH THAT NEGATIVITY! GO BACK AND READ THE MESSAGE YOU SENT,VERY DUMB & NEGATIVE!
Just because somebody is not voting for Hillary dosen't mean they are a"gay white divisive male.
What is your point in bringing that up anyways?
Good light piece for a Monday AM read.
Such a high negative cannot hope to win a presidency of change.
Well, here's hoping that the young turn out.
I remember the question being asked once, and Jesse Ventura (!) commented to the college student who asked it - about why politicians cater to the older people rather than the younger ones, and Ventura's response was on point: Older people vote.
If young people want to be taken seriously by candidates, they are going to have to move beyond Facebook and into the voting booths.
How 'bout it, youngsters? You wouldn't want your parents, or worse, those strange people down the block from them, to choose your wardrobe or your music collection. Why do you let them choose your political leaders?
Good point. Not voting is not cool.
Interesting but I hope all these guys and gals vote. I am in my twenties but I haven't missed a vote and I don't intend to miss any.
Wish we get called sometimes to express our opinion on these polls that has turned into a thing for older people.
I think Obama rocks!!!
Obama '08
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Posted October 7, 2007 | 08:43 PM (EST)