How Twitter humor impacted media coverage of the election
When you watch the debates with Twitter open, you don’t really pay attention. You listen for odd turns of phrase or obvious verbal flubs, you glance up at the screen to note whether one candidate is making a funny face while listening to his opponent speak, and you try to see what funny jokes your friends and other journalists are making. Everyone was eventually just throwing gags into a maelstrom of one-liners, and it was impossible to read them all. (This was its own frustration: your A-level material, buried by everyone else’s dumb jokes!) And at the end of the night, none of it had anything to do with interpreting the debate for readers. If either “Binders” or “Big Bird” changed a single vote, I will shave David Axelrod’s mustache.Simon Owens is an assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Email him at sowens@usnews.com
The youth vote may have actually increased since 2008. Do we have Facebook to thank for that?
Did Facebook Give Democrats the Upper Hand?
Assuming you are over the age of 18 and were using a computer in the United States, you probably saw at the top of your Facebook page advising you that, surprise, it was Election Day. There was a link where you could find your polling place, a button that said either “I’m voting” or I’m a voter,” and pictures of the faces of friends who had already declared they had voted, which also appeared in your News Feed. If you saw something like that, you were in good company: 94 percent of 18-and-older U.S. Facebook users got that treatment, assigned randomly, of course.* Though it’s not yet known how many people that is, in a similar experiment performed in 2010, the number was *60 million*. Presumably it was even more on Tuesday, as Facebook has grown substantially in the past two years. But here’s the catch: six percent of people didn’t get the intervention. Two percent saw nothing — no message, no button, no news stories. Another two percent saw the message but no stories of friends’ voting behavior populated their feeds, and a final two percent saw only the social content but no message at the top. By splitting up the population into these experimental and control groups, researchers will be able to see if the messages had any effect on voting behavior when they begin matching the Facebook users to the voter rolls (whom a person voted for is private information, but whether they voted is public). If those who got the experimental treatment voted in greater numbers, as is expected, Fowler and his team will be able to have a pretty good sense of just how many votes in the 2012 election came directly as a result of Facebook.Simon Owens is an assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Email him at sowens@usnews.com
CHART OF THE DAY: While pundits are portraying this election as a neck-and-neck race, President Obama clearly has the electoral college advantage, as evidenced by these state-level polls. For more on Obama’s electoral edge, go here
What geology and the 2012 election have in common
Obama’s Secret Weapon In The South: Small, Dead, But Still Kickin’
“The part of the country possessing this thick, dark and naturally rich soil was, of course, the part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers.” After the Civil War, a lot of former slaves stayed on this land, and while many migrated North, their families are still there … In this 2000 census, you can see that the counties with the biggest populations of African-Americans still trace that Cretaceous shoreline. This, says marine biologist McClain, explains that odd stretch of Obama blue; it’s African-Americans sitting on old soil from ancient organisms that turned sunshine into fertilizer.Simon Owens is an assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Email him at sowens@usnews.com
CHART OF THE DAY: A new report finds many military members and their spouses aren’t exercising their right to vote this election, with the low number of absentee ballot requests on track to make 2012 a record low for the military vote. To learn more about this trend, go here
2012: The year military voters stayed home?
Military Vote Missing This Election — Including In Big Swing States
The Military Voter Protection Project found that absentee ballot requests by the military dropped significantly since 2008, including in big swing states. As of Sept. 22, requests were down 46 percent in Florida, 70 percent in Virginia, and 70 percent in Ohio. A similar drop occurred in non-battleground states like Alaska and North Carolina.
Of the last 19 presidential candidates who were ahead in the polls this late in the race, 18 won the election
The Statistical State of the Presidential Race
There has not been any tendency, at least at this stage of the race, for the contest to break toward the challenging candidate. Instead, it’s actually the incumbent-party candidate who has gained ground on average since 1936. On average, the incumbent candidate added 4.6 percentage points between the late September polls and his actual Election Day result, whereas the challenger gained 2.5 percentage points.Simon Owens is an assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Email him at sowens@usnews.com
Ron Paul Will Stop Actively Campaigning
“Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have. I encourage all supporters of Liberty to make sure you get to the polls and make your voices heard, particularly in the local, state, and Congressional elections, where so many defenders of Freedom are fighting and need your support.”
In Defense of the Etch A Sketch (and Mitt Romney Too)
In Fehrnstrom’s defense, he was right. This is what candidates in both parties do—whether it’s softening a position on an issue or professing sudden love for someone you slammed as a primary foe, but who now is offering you his or her endorsement. It’s not that Fehrnstrom was wrong. He just shouldn’t have said it out loud. All candidates shake the proverbial Etch A Sketch, but Romney has a particular problem explaining why he has changed his views on such fundamental issues as abortion and gay rights.
Rush Limbaugh Leads Republicans Right Into Social Issues Trap
They can’t stop talking about social issues, even as contraception is a fact of life for 99 percent of American women and a majority of Americans support gay rights, including a plurality in the NBC News poll who back gay marriage. The Republicans are too driven by the talk radio universe of Rush Limbaugh and a primary in which only the base of the base is turning out because their candidates aren’t generating any excitement.
Improving Economy Driving Independents Back to Obama
A recent poll released by the Pew Research Center, shows Obama improving his standing with independent voters in a head-to-head match-up against top GOP contender Mitt Romney. Just a month ago, only 40 percent of registered independent voters nationwide preferred Obama to the former Massachusetts governor, but now that number sits at 51 percent.
