Sunday, March 28, 2010

State of the Race on FaceBook


Greetings All,

Here are Bludgeon & Skewer we're always looking for new metrics to get a gauge of our candidate's success in spreading the message of Liberty and the latest result of this quest is the FaceBook Fan Counter (FBFC). The basic idea is that if a FaceBook page and a FaceBook presence are now de rigeur for all politicians, does the number of fans they have translate into success at the ballot box?

To find that out we're going to look at our statewide candidates as well as the two Libertarian State Senate candidates and keep a weekly tally of their FaceBook fans to see if there is any correlation with the outcomes of their races. Not as bad as underwater BB stacking and it may reveal something of interest.

So here's the first read of the FBFC counter








State Senate 42 Special Election
democrat Jason Carter 1,598 fans
Libertarian David Montané 5 fans
democrat Tom Stubbs No FaceBook Fan Page

US Senate Race
Libertarian Chuck Donovan 117 friends
republican Johnny Isakson 5,838 fans
democrat RJ Hadley 347 fans

Georgia Governor's Race
Libertarian John Monds 346 fans
democrat Roy Barnes 2,132 fans
republican John Oxendine 3,361 fans
republican Karen Handel 3,450 fans
republican Nathan Deal 3,697 fans
republican Ray McBerry 419 fans
republican Austin Scott 2,790 fans
republican Eric Johnson 2,856 fans

Georgia Secretary of State
Libertarian David Chastain 127 fans
republican Brian Kemp 1.664 fans
republican Doug McGinnitie 1,772 fans
democrat Darryl Hicks 234 fans
democrat Gail Buckner No FaceBook Fan page
democrat Gary Horlacher 58 fans
democrat Micheal Mills 583 fans


Labor Commissioner
Libertarian Will Costa 174 fans
republican Melvin Everson 251 fans

Superintendent of Schools
Libertarian Kira Willis 334 fans
democrat Beth Farokhi 426 members
democrat Brian Westlake 372 fans
republican John Barge 303 fans
republican Kathy Cox 469 fans
republican Richard Woods 451 members
republican Rodger Hines No FaceBook page

So there's the first run on this experiment. Not all candidates were included this time, but there's always next week.

Additionally, some of these third tier guys and gals need to go ahead and admit their party affiliation on their websites or FaceBook fan pages. There's no need to make a partisan Libertarian Community Organizer dig around the internet to find out which brand of political hacksterism they belong to. If your consultants are telling you it's to early to talk about that, then get new consultants.

4 comments:

  1. Michael Mills is a Democrat.

    What about Democrats Thurbert Baker, David Poythress, DuBose Porter and Carl Camon, all running for Governor? They all have Facebook groups.

    John Barge and Roger Hines are Republicans.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous,

    Thanks for edit input.

    The democrat candidates for Governor will be included in next weeks review although I might redefine the filter as Fan pages only. A couple of candidates seem to have FaceBook pages with members and or friends but no fan option. And if we start looking at all the FaceBook pages these guys and gals have it'll just take to long to compile.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks like you missed Oxendine's personal page with almost 5000 friends.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous,

    Nope, just did not count it. The filter is for fan pages, almost all of the candidates listed so far have fan pages, standard pages and some of them have committee to elect pages.

    For example Libertarian John Monds has his fan page with 346 fans, his FaceBook page with 1,202 friends and the John Monds for Governor of Georgia FaceBook page with 363 members. that's three separate FaceBook pages with a total membership of 1,911 fans, friends and members. That has to mean that there is some double counting as some of these people probably belong to all three groups. That's why the filter is for fan pages and if no fan page is up, then the member pages are counted. If a candidate has no page page as of the latest count, that is indicated.

    ReplyDelete