Facebook Article

My friend Barack and I both like to listen to Bob Dylan. Waterskiing is not only my favorite water activity, but my buddy Mitt’s as well. Not only that, but my pal Rudy and I both love baseball.

Thanks to Facebook and MySpace, politicians can now reach the youth in whole new ways. With the success of these social networks, the candidates have turned to them for networking their own campaigns, and doing so in ways that appeal to the youth. For example, did you know John Edwards likes “The River” by Bruce Springsteen? I did, because I Facebooked him.

Facebook and MySpace make the candidates more real to students who are seemingly ignored by the campaigns. You can see that John McCain likes “Seinfeld,” making him that much more relatable, and one could argue, cooler. This is exactly what they’re hoping for. Even in the past two elections, internet campaigning hadn’t been fully embraced. Now candidates can post videos, messages, and list their favorite movies in order to get in touch with students - at little cost in time or money.

On Facebook, instead of the usual ‘friending’ of other members, the users are given to option to ‘support’ candidates of their liking. When you look at the numbers, it offers a surprising insight into college students. The top four of each party looks like this:

Democrats

1. Obama – 144,650

2. Clinton – 41,967

3. Edwards – 18,962

4. Kucinich - 10,558

Republicans

1. Paul 24,897

2. Romney – 17,667

3. Thompson – 14,845

4. McCain – 10,522

Compare those to a nationwide Gallup Poll.

Democrats – Sept. 13

1. Clinton - 45%

2. Obama - 24%

3. Edwards - 16%

4. Biden - 3%

Republicans – Sept. 12

1. Giuliani - 34%

2. Thompson - 22%

3. McCain - 15%

4. Romney - 10%

Notably, the top candidates on Facebook are not the top candidates for the national polls. In fact, the Republican’s leading Facebook candidate, Ron Paul, only has 1% in the Gallup Poll, while Gallup Republican leader Rudy Giuliani only has 2,643 supporters on Facebook. Why Giuliani is so popular with Gallup and not with Facebook, I’m not sure, but I’ll assume it’s because he says he’s a Yankees fan on his page.

It’s not surprising that Obama is leading, with the way the youth seem to view him, but the margin by which he’s winning is quite significant. Perhaps one explanation would be Facebook users tend to be liberal. DePaul’s network statistics look like this:

26% liberal or very liberal

11% are moderate

7% conservative or very conservative

5% other

1% libertarian

1% apathetic

46% no listed political affiliation

I was hoping to get a campaign to comment about the role of Facebook in the election, so I went to each candidate’s Facebook page and tried to email them. Obama and Thompson didn’t list an email address, Clinton’s and Edwards’ emails bounced back, and I didn’t hear back from the others. Makes you wonder how much they really care about being in touch with students.

Except for Ron Paul.

Jeff Frazee, National Youth Coordinate for the Paul campaign, responded. His position was created because of the “growing youth movement” for Paul, and in particular the way that the youth has responded to Paul online.

“We are using Facebook in a very large way to organize our Students for Ron Paul network. There is a national group that now has over 22,400 members and grows by about 1,000 per week. It has an extremely active forum and wall. It is the place to go for the latest news and information,” Frazee said. “From this group there is a link to ‘Join Your Students for Ron Paul Chapter.’ This page lists many of the Students for Ron Paul chapters we've started across the country. Students email me daily looking to start a chapter on their campus.”

Besides organizing, Facebook has become a fundraising tool for the Paul campaign. “Students organized mostly through the Facebook group to raise over $42,000 for the campaign. Since then, we have raised a few thousands more. And with the 3rd fundraising quarter ending at the end of this month,” Frazee said, “if we can hit our goal, this means students will have raised over $100,000 for this campaign since it first began. A feat no other candidate can match.”

What does it all mean? Maybe the youth vote means very little, considering the vast discrepancies between the two polls and how the candidates seemingly don’t want you to contact them. But then there are people like Ron Paul who are living off of the students support. The candidates have created these sites for the purpose of attracting the student vote, perhaps acknowledging that the role of the student will be significant after all.