Trend Analysis: Candidate War Impact on Progressive Blogs
A review of monthly traffic on 5 major progressive blogs (2 pro-Obama, one neutral, 2 pro-Clinton) reveals some interesting statistics. Beyond mere stats, though, lies a story - are the blogs that lean strongly toward one candidate or the other hurting themselves - and in the process, Democratic Party chances in November?
As readers of progressive blogs are painfully aware, the Democratic Party candidate wars have become acrimonious and in some cases, very personal. I was a long time reader (and contributor) to Daily Kos, but recently bid farewell to “big orange”. Why? As a relatively non-aligned member of the DKos community, I no longer felt welcomed on the site. The evening of March 4th was pretty much the kicker for me. Venom was spewing, stupid declarations were being made, and it was clear that an online civil war had been joined.
I noticed the same basic trend on a few other sites that are (or were) on my daily reading list. If comments were made that could be perceived as pro-Clinton or anti-Obama, the swarm descended. Rationality seems to have taken a back seat to ad hominem attacks - and not just at the hands of the community members - but the actual proprietors of the blogs. It’s clear that certain blogmasters have taken up sides in the candidate wars. But probably more than just taking up sides, many of these blogs have actively gone super negative, rather than simply favoring one candidate over the other.
“Ok, so what?”, you might wonder. Apropos of nothing, I decided to take a peek at the site traffic stats for five “A-List” progressive blogs. I have some degree of familiarity with each of them, having participated in the communities either in the past or currently. The choices of blogs and the reviews that follow are completely subjective on my part. Two of the sites are pro-Obama, two are pro-Clinton, and one could be considered “neutral”.
A quick review of the graphics below tell a surprising tale: traffic is down significantly on the pro-Obama sites (30% or more over the past month), but about level on the pro-Clinton and “neutral” sites. What does this mean? I have no friggin’ idea. But the trends are clear and appear to be statistically significant. Let’s take a look:
AmericaBlog (leans Obama): As the candidate wars have escalated, AmericaBlog has experienced a 40% drop in peak weekly traffic over the past 30 days. From a pure statistical standpoint, both the traffic peaks and valleys are both lower, and consistently so. That’s what’s significant: the straight-line progression (and angle) of the downward slope.
Daily Kos (leans Obama): In one month alone, DKos shed nearly 1/2 million unique visitors (on peak traffic days) between the beginning of March and April’s Fool day. Statistically, the 30% drop on DKos is not as significant as the 40% on AmericaBlog, but the sheer numbers tell the story - and again, the straight-line progression of the traffic decline is notable.
Atrios’ Eschaton (neutral): I’ll give Atrios this: he’s managed to build a nice little empire, and a heck of a stable (traffic-wise) community. Eschaton has taken pains to maintain site neutrality in the candidate wars, even if the community members seem to lean more Obama (but not rabidly so, as is the case on DKos and AmericaBlog). As a result, Eschaton has been able to maintain a relatively flat slope on traffic gains or losses.
Talk Left (leans Clinton): If the Obama-leaning sites have driven off Clinton supporters to other sites, the defection isn’t particularly apparent on the two blogs reviewed that lean toward Clinton. There hasn’t been a significant increase in traffic at Talk Left - but there hasn’t been a decrease, either. Like Eschaton, Talk Left apparently has a community that is more vested in the blog itself and less in a particular candidate, and as a result, traffic has been relatively stable over the past 30 days.
MyDD (leans Clinton): Again, for a self-identified pro-Clinton blog, the traffic at MyDD has remained fairly static at the height of the candidate wars. It’s hard to say if this is because defecting Obama supporters are being offset by an influx of disaffected Clinton backers from other blogs, or if the traffic patterns on MyDD are just “mature”, due to the longevity of the blog.
The lessons for political blogmasters? I’m not sure that there are any. What’s clear is that the overt political partitioning of the two pro-Obama blogs (DKos and AmericaBlog) has resulted in a demonstrably negative short term impact on site traffic at both blogs. Does this mean that some type of power shift is taking place in the progressive blogosphere? I doubt it, but there are certainly some emerging trends that are worth watching.
The bottom line: it would appear that a progressive blogmaster who makes a tactical decision to overtly support Obama is taking both some short and long term risk. The neutral and Clinton-leaning blogs will probably retain their hard core base over the long term. But these things go in cycles, so who knows?
(BTW, the site traffic at All Spin Zone has remained relatively stable - sucky, but stable.)
Personally, I’ve been shocked at the way Obama fever seems to have taken over the ‘progressive blogosphere’. These days, I search in vain for a blog where I can pick up the news without the massive pro-Obama slant. And it’s not that I’m for Clinton. I just think neither Clinton or Obama are anything but right-leaning corporatist establishmentarian Empire builders, despite their occasional bow to progressive concerns (such as peace, trade deals and universal health care). If I had to choose one, I guess I’d choose Obama, just ’cause we’ve been-there-done-that when it comes to Clinton. But I don’t see anything remotely like an authentic progressive choice there. I sure don’t see anything remotely like “change” or “hope”.
Not long ago, this was commonly recognized in the blogosphere. I remember just a year ago or so, it was commonplace, as I recall, for Daily Kos (never a realm of wild eyed lefties) to bash Obama hard and often for the way he constantly aped GOP talking points. Now you can’t say anything critical of Obama on Daily Kos, as far as I can tell from my infrequent visits. If you write at Daily Kos, you gush about Obama. Period. Same thing at Buzzflash. Same thing at Raw Story. You gush about Obama or you shut up pretty quick. Even Znet, of all places, is becoming Obamaville, Paul Street aside.
What I ask is this: if winning is more important to the Dems than integrity, than right and wrong, than principles of any kind, then what is it all for? Is it really just so we and our pals can get the patronage and the feeling of being near the seat of power and so on and so on. So Markos could become a pundit? So Znet and Buzzflash can expand their programs and maybe make some money for their principles, who are surely approaching Middle Age now. Why are candidates that we regularly and rightly attacked just months ago now the objects of intense PASSION and DEVOTION? Is something wrong with this picture?
Hell, I can understand 20,000 people at Penn State coming out to hear Obama speak easier than I can understand the way the blogosphere fawns over him. After all, Obama has a lot of Charisma and for the young, in an America defined by American Idol, that’s what counts. Screw policy, critical thought and other boring stuff. But the blogosphere is supposed to be jampacked with people who really dig critical thinking, or so I once thought, naively.
Today is a perfect day for this to be discussed, in a way. I happened to check in on Daily Kos today, to see if they had caught onto the bogus Iran Attack story that has been going around today. They had, it seems, to their credit. But something else I saw there caught me off guard: there was a story on the popular list rejoicing in the fact that Lee Hamilton had endorsed Obama. LEE FREAKING HAMILTON!!!
Lee Hamilton has been a more reliable GO TO guy for the GOP to cover up its villainy than Joe Lieberman!!!! He has been excoriated for this and rightly so by progressives. Iran/Contra. The 911 Whitewash. The bogus Iraq Study Group. The Department of Fascism, I mean, the Department of Homeland Security. This guy has been the very definition of ‘backstabber’. Yeah, I know, he’s as folksy as all get out. So is Bush, supposedly. I live in Southern Indiana. People know how to do folksy here. It’s a face they keep in a jar by the door.
Anyway, Daily Kos appeared to be rejoicing, dancing in the streets, because Hamilton had gone for Obama. One or two people, thankfully, seemed to say ‘hey, wait a minnit, isn’t this a guy whose endorsement SHOULDN’T be considered a good thing? What, is Karl Rove gonna endorse Obama next and are we gonna dance in the streets about that!!?’ But they pretty much got shouted down. I don’t know where they found the courage to even try.
I put it all down to the lure of power. When people feel themselves edging closer to the seats of power, they can’t resist the seduction of it. Their whole way of seeing things becomes distorted. Lee Hamilton becomes ‘the highly respected elder statesman’ instead of ‘the ruthless backstabber for sale’. Kossacks today were even hoping, with stars in their eyes, that Baron Hill might endorse Obama too! BARON FRICKING HILL!! Good Lord, Baron Hill is the biggest Blue Dog in the House! That creep even fought against SCHIP! And you are lusting after HIS endorsement?!
So folks’ perspective on everything changes when they feel the lure of power. Suddenly 911 wasn’t a whitewash. Maybe we don’t need Habeas Corpus that much. Maybe the gutting of Fisa is ok after all. Conceptual drift ocurrs quietly, gradually. Hamilton praises Obama saying that ‘he will use all the powers of the President!’ Well, that sounds to me like code for the Unitary Executive fiction. But I guess that’s ok as long as we think it’s OUR GUY who’s the Decider?! Obama insists that all options are on the table with Iran. Why is that suddenly not only an acceptable position, but one we dote on lovingly? Oh what a peacemaker Our Wondrous Obama is compared to McCain and Hillary, though there’s really little signifigant difference in their positions.
So, McCain is idiot enough to sing songs about bombing Iran. Obama is idiot enough to suggest lobbing missles into Pakistan if we get ‘actionable evidence’, which as we know, don’t mean squat. I hate to think of either one of them, or Hillary, with ambition crazed fingers hovering over the red button. I guess I just haven’t taken my dose of conceptual drift yet.
I think rudeness is often the domain of the young, which could create a fair amount of the contentiousness. I challenge racism, sexism and any bias towards overt stupidity, but if someone wants to flame and try to get my goat, I let them be a dick and trust our readers will also discern that quickly and refuse to be drawn in.
One explanation for the partisan difference may be simply that Clinton’s base of support is more stable because she has the support of a majority of the nation’s largest demographic, women. Or that Obama supporters just quit going to sites where others aren’t sympathetic to their views, while Clinton supporters come and go because they have to actively campaign in hopes of helping her catch up.
It’s kinda hard to pinpoint from such a limited sample, though. Personally, I think all the divisiveness could hurt Democrats unless it doesn’t. Whose prediction can possibly be trusted on such a thing?
After awhile, the pouting and threats and hysteria is just too much soap opera for me. Most everyone is just talking past each other. It’s not real useful discussion.
So as a blogger, I report what I see, add some perspective or offer some opinion, and let it go. I don’t feel compelled to convince anyone anything about something so relatively benign as this primary race. If enough Democrats want to stay divided and we lose a shot at the White House, we’ll just have to deal with another vicious, corrupt President. And if we win, we could get that, too.
Cynicism is very useful to the maintenance of perspective when the field’s fulla cowpies.
i’m a little curious about your methodology. why did you just go back over the last 30 days? it seems that almost all of the blogs, whatever their leanings, had a nice spike around 3/2 and 3/3 (the days before the big texas/ohio primaries). if you take those days out of each of the charts, you end up with ameriblog and kos looking pretty flat, just like the other three.
i think a better measure is looking back since december. because the first voting started in january, december is a good baseline to compare with once the race heated up later on. if you look at the americablog monthly stats, the traffic has increased each month since december, with march 08 showing a huge spike, higher than the hit count of any other month in the last year.
in that context i think it’s really strange to argue that his hits are down.
Noz, I’m not trying to draw any conclusions - and there’s no real “methodology”, per se, other than my gut feelings coming off of March 4th and 5th when the candidate wars really heated up. However, I can’t help but feel that shedding 30 - 40% of a site’s unique visitors over a month’s period is indeed significant and indicative of something.
The blogoshpere acrimony was demonstrable in the weeks following Texas and Ohio. That’s why I picked a 30 day window to look at a short term trend, rather than a longer view. There are other indicators that feed my gut (such as being a participant (or at least fairly familiar) with the communities at the blogs I analyzed) …
I’m one of those former DKos and Americablog readers who’s defected in the last month, so I’m not surprised to see this. I’ve stayed with Talk Left, and Left Coaster and Suburban Guerilla (sites whose traffic levels you should check out too.) I have also discovered in my exile new blogs that counter the blind Obamania of Kos. Many of us pro-Hillary Kossacks are shacking up at Corrente, Riverdaugher, and Taylor Marsh. It might be interesting to see the traffic trends at those sites. I simply wish the strong progressive outlets like Kos would stay fairly neutral on the Dem candidates and stick to pushing the nominees on staying progressive on the issues. I’ve defected sadly from Moveon.org for the same reason. They’ve lost their footing a little on all of this. Kos was a great progressive netroots leader…I hope he gets his game back.
The blogoshpere acrimony was demonstrable in the weeks following Texas and Ohio. That’s why I picked a 30 day window to look at a short term trend, rather than a longer view. There are other indicators that feed my gut (such as being a participant (or at least fairly familiar) with the communities at the blogs I analyzed) …
i guess that’s where i disagree. it’s been building since the new year. march was the worst, but february was pretty bad too, and january was worse than december.
and as i pointed out, americablog’s hit numbers in march are way way above its numbers in february. doesn’t that undermine your conclusion that the acrimony in early march caused a hit drop?
it seems to me that the acrimony has helped the hit numbers of every blog that is talking about the primany. hell, i am visiting blogs i used to visit once a day every couple of hours because i want to respond to the charges and counter charges in the comments there. i think if you look you will find that everyone who has taken a position on the candidates got a bump in march over what they had in february.
Lisa, Lisa! You’re remaining partisan when the whole intent of this post was nonpartisanship! DANG! Didn’t you get Richard’s point? Sure, DKos should remain nonpartisan, but so should the folks you defected to. This is about Democrats winning, not touting Hillary or Obama.
Eh, Talkleft never had a large enough audience to matter. It’s kind of like the Washington Post: only important because other bloggers read it.
The only thing this really proves is that Clinton supporters have to had to retreat further into their own protective bubble.
Eh, 30,000 unique visitors per day isn’t negligable in the progressive blogosphere, Soullite.
I picked Talk Left (as I did with the rest of the blogs analyzed) because I’m familiar enough with the place to have developed my own impression (above and beyond raw traffic stats). Plus, their traffic levels are high enough that a one or two day uptick (because of a particular issue) wouldn’t skew the numbers all that much.
My analysis is imperfect, at best, but I thought the whole exercise was an interesting snapshot.
I’d say the acrimony started when John Edwards dropped out. Up until that point, the blogosphere was heavily pro-Edwards. After he dropped out, that’s when most bloggers broke for Obama and became personally invested in his campaign.
Richard, It’s kind of an understatement to say you were using no real method here. First, you used different starting points for different blogs. Second, you start and end on different days of the week (readership midweek is much higher than on a Monday, even more so than no weekends). And then you include partial day totals for April 1. DKos traffic from this Monday is at the same level as for the previous two Mondays. No drop at all - in fact, a slight increase is apparent.
I think it’s a stretch to link trends in traffic to political “leanings”, when so many other factors create fluctuations in traffic. That’s particularly obvious with the traffic at Daily Kos, which has gone way up overall during the last few months though your model describes it as declining. We’re averaging over a million visits per day this winter, which not long ago was the peak level of traffic for us.
I’d like to see this debated over there at DailyKos. Keep in mind that the folks here have met Markos, and we admire his site. Richard is a member there and blogs there fairly regulary, and almost always when he does so the item is promoted. We’re fans. This is not a slam on DKos. Not by a long shot. But I’d like to see some serious discussion here. The folks on DailyKos are strong, very strong, at analyzing facts and figures. Someone should post a notice on the front page and have the good people over ther give it a go and try to parse Richard’s figures.
Smitheus, thanks for stopping by. I (respectfully) think that you protest too much.
I took a 30 day snapshot from the time I wrote my GBCW diary at DKos, and included a red line on each graph merely to show trend slope, nothing more - no starting or ending point is intended.
The short term trend seems pretty clear. I’m not disagreeing that overall traffic is up; hell, it’s up here, too compared to this time last year. I’ve acknowledged that my analysis is imperfect, at best, but shedding 400,000 uniques (on peak days) in a month is significant. I didn’t take the snapshots at midnight, rather, about 7PM yesterday evening, so evening traffic isn’t reflected for 4/1. And if DKos traffic was at a million yesterday, that still fits in with the straight line progression downward.
Please note that I drew no firm conclusions, and clearly said I don’t know what the trends mean (in the big scheme of things).
but richard, why, for example, isn’t the MyDD line pointing downward? for some reason your red line doesn’t start with the 3/2-3/4 spike, you start it a week later when the hit count was a lot lower. meanwhile americablog’s “drop” is due almost entirely to the fact that you started the red line in that first weekend.
even looking at your charts i simply don’t think it paints as neat a picture as you claim here.
everyone but atrios had a hit drop after the period around 3/2-3/4, no matter which way they leaned. it looks to me like the significant difference is not between clinton leaners or obama leaners, but rather between blogs that have taken sides and those that have not. the ones who have a clear bias towards a candidate understandably have more people checking in on the site in the days leading up to a major primary contest. the blog that tried to stay neutral is the only one that doesn’t show that effect.
There has been almost no actual news - as in, voting - since early March. I’m actually surprised that page views haven’t fallen more rather than less across the board, and I think that’s really what is happening at DKos. I also can’t see you conclusions, especially as applied to TalkLeft, as being things that follow from your data. TalkLeft is an extremely partisan Clinton site which pretends that it isn’t. Look at the headlines, for heavens sake - let alone reading the comments. It is a refuge for anti-Obama (first) and pro-Clinton (second) viewers, and that’s their audience. It’s remained stable, which actually argues against your hypothesis. MyDD, although it has pro-Clinton voices, also has pro-Obama voices. It has the same trend as TalkLeft. And I’d bet that Balloon Juice (I’d guess comparable to TalkLeft), a partisan pro-Obama (first) and anti-Clinton (second) site, also has pretty stable ratings. My hypothesis: DKos hits are a function of news, while smaller sites rely more on a community that is more stable.
everyone but atrios had a hit drop after the period around 3/2-3/4
Correct, Noz - which is why my slope lines (included for clarity only) don’t include 3/4 - 3/5 (except AmericaBlog, sloppiness on my part, which I’ll fix when I have a moment). I was more interested in looking at the peaks, and the trend in the peaks.
Marc, it’s hard to see how a 400,000 unique visitor dropoff (NOT page views) can be attributed to “lack of news”. But maybe it is. Again, I’m not trying to draw any conclusions.
Hillary has gone through the Media Smear Meisters machine for the past fifteen years or so, but seems always to attract those premier first line Journalist, contextual mercenaries that demonize the Democrats, like Chris Mathews, Limbaugh, Hannity, the list is too long. But, it all sells commercial time which is important.
The Clinton administration was nothing like the time America is witnessing today. Now, an endless war in Iraq or hundred years which do you prefer, uncharted economics paralleled to actions taken during the depression. A Federal Reserve that glows like the “Doctor Do Little Movie” we’ve never seen anything like this. Diesel now is more than gas.
And a Mainstream Media supporting all this as not too bad. This Bush era is just as good as the Clinton era discounting the four thousand combat troops killed in action in Iraq compared to almost none lost in Bosnia. Here the media only concerned that Hillary lied about sniper fire which is usually always true in a free fire zone no matter how many kids or civilians are in the back ground videos they were all warned. Hell everyone who goes to an American football game or political rally is exposed to a terrorist attack. Let alone the air field in some combat zone across the world.
For me, trying to find out more about Obama in his book “Audacity of Hope” Just about finished reading it. Here, it has many passages that are as controversial as his Reverend Wright friend although not talked about. This ideal that Obama is not Islamic or has absolutely no affinity to Islam is brought forward by Obama himself in the last chapter page 315.
Get this, Obama makes the claim that Islamic Law is the more traditional principles of social organization. Did you get that America.
Strikingly, other countries that reject American efforts should follow their own path turning to more traditional principles of social organization, like Islamic law.
Sheesh, Islamic law, more traditional principles of social organization. What happened to the Christian stuff???
Kos did have an 800,000 visitor spike on the big primary day, and there was a (less contested) primary the following week. I’d expect something similar (although smaller) on the 22nd with the PA primary and on May 6th. So there is a constituency that depends strongly on the news cycle. I would probably feel lonely as a Clinton partisan on Kos right now, and that may well be a contributing factor. But there are other explanations, including which sub-community you’re a part of. In particular, I’d suspect that only a minority of the viewers at Kos actually participate in diaries and comments (I’d be curious about actual data there, in fact.) Those folks really do feel subject to the passions and tone of the place. Most just go to see the highlights of the take on the daily news, which will be less steady and which will drive the page view data.
Noz, I fixed the slope line on the AmericaBlog graph for you…
Love (in a heterosexual, manly kind of way),
Richard
Nice post. I’m a former dailykossack although I was never a big fan. It always had a militaristic bent especially from the Clarkies. Then there was the DLC period when it was Warner, Warner, Warner. But the lefties dragged the site left because of Edwards (who i support). Now it’s back to its more centrist comfort zone.
here are certainly some emerging trends that are worth watching.
there are no trends and the results of your survey are perfectly predictable. Most people go to the blogs to find honesty and neutrality in their information. If they wanted bullshit infotainment they don’t need to go to dKos, TPM, Open Left, or Ameriblog, they can just watch TV including Olbermann.
Oh and BTW, MyDD is not leaning Clinton, it is decidedly pro-Obama. But Jerome Armstrong, like Big tent Democrat at Talk Left is exceptional in unbiased reporting for a pro-Obamanite. Beeton at MyDD should be on dKos or some other rabidsphere blog and Singer is pretty bad, but not quite wingnut bad. I suspect that because there is some unbiased information on MyDD, i.e., they’re not all wingnut rabid like at dKos, TPM, and others, and that they surely have some loyal following are the reasons they don’t follow the other Obamamaniac blog trends.
.
Great post.
Also a great comment, eppie.
There is no real progressive blogosphere at those places. Just faith based communities, the antitthesis of crticial reasoning and crtiques of the system.
These people are fine with class stratification, If Obama says it is okay.
Check your critcial reasoning skills at the door when you enter Daily Kos (Obama) or MyDD (Clinton).
Two corporatists and the so-called progressive netroots swoons.
I think Obama told his obamabrats that he was losing votes because of the abuse people were getting on the blogs from them. They haven’t gone away. They are just waiting for the GE which I hope they are not a part of..
A lot of the Clinton partisans here (and on Clinton sites) seem to be falling into the “fair-and-balanced” trap, or perhaps the “Shape of Earth: Opinions DIffer” trap. One could define balance as simply presenting the Clinton and Obama campaign claims unfiltered, with no judgment and equal space for both. However, imagine for a minute that one campaign…brace yourself…is actually operating in a destructive fashion, or isn’t doing a very good job, or is making ridiculous claims. It isn’t “bias” to call that campaign on what they’re doing. In fact, a lot of the pro-Clinton commentary, like the comments in this thread, make straight ad hominum appeals to dismiss critics. Josh Marshall doesn’t have wrong arguments; he’s “biased” and can be dismissed. Lifelong Democrats have “Clinton Derangement Syndrome” all the sudden. There are bizarre parallels here with the behavior of Bush partisans in 2004, in particular in the ease with which critical information is dismissed. I read different sites for different perspectives, and what strikes me about the Clinton-partisan sites is the deep bitterness that pervades the comments and headlines in many of them.
Almost all Democrats have close friends and family members on both sides of the Obama/Clinton issue. If you think that you don’t, it is probably because you’re such a vocal partisan that people simply don’t talk about it. In my family, for example, my wife, father, sister, and mother all voted for Clinton. My son, daughter, me, my brother, and my sister-in-law all voted for Obama. My father and mother in law, along with my wife’s sister, were Clinton supporters. Her husband and my wife’s brother voted for Obama. I doubt we’re terribly atypical. In fact, we fit most of the demographic stereotypes (older and female more Clinton, younger and male more Obama.) We’re therefore not starting out from a hostile perspective.
But there is a time when the votes are counted, your candidate didn’t win, and it’s time to move on. The Democratic primary is at that stage as far as I’m concerned. I sympathize with Clintonites (as a former Dean supporter in 2004), but that’s how it shook out. And calling the Clinton campaign on silly or counter-productive claims is necessary for a credible commentator, not a sign of bias.
Nice analysis. I was also once a regular participant on dkos, but felt it had become too vitriolic in it’s zeal to do anything to denigrate Clinton. I can greatly admire Obama’s ability to reach out and draw in new voters and youth, but I can also deplore the tactics utilized by some of his supporters. My biggest concern is that none of this occurs in a vacuum: he surely has knowledge of how his opponent is being labeled by his supporters. Either he makes no move to redirect all that energy because it assists him in reaching his goal, or he simply doesn’t care about the reputation of a good Democrat who he will have to work with in the future.
The decline in traffic at the sites that are so staunchly anti Clinton should be a warning to the Obama campaign, continue to demonize the candidate, and the supporters will not ‘come home’ to reward that behavior in the GE.
As someone who has been with MyDD a long time, I consider it my duty to battle the almost pathological Obama-hate on their and so I continue to go. I also continue to go to see the latest anti-Obama attacks and figure out how to counter them or if they have merit (rare but it happens!).
At the risk of making the blog-war worse, it seems that the Clinton people are driven to find an echo chamber.
While Obama supporters assume that they have brought out the vote single-handedly and that there is nothing there to push against, these data show that Clinton supporters are serious and in numbers far larger than Obama people realize. We just don’t scream and become disorderly at the drop of a pin. Steady as she goes….
Yep, when Edwards dropped out is when most of the blogosphere went south. By marginalizing and forcing out of the race John Edwards, the best candidate we had for this year, the GOP’s plan to divide the Democrats has worked like a Tiffany watch.
Now we are totally screwed. Both candidates have been damaged beyond repair. The only one benefiting from this is John McCain.
It would interesting to see these trend lines over a longer period, like when Edwards dropped out, when each site endorsed a candidate, and notes on big media events. DKos could have just lost a lot of unique visitors because a good percentage of those visitors aren’t regular readers and just went to get analysis around the primaries, but since there has been little going on it has dropped off. A longer period would have established baseline support for each site. Has Ameriblog gone down or is it just coming off a high? Both pro-Clinton blogs peaked on primary day and then immediately dropped to a stable level, while Ameriblog spiked but then took a month to get back down to MyDD level of daily vistors.
This period is the anomaly of the campaign. We will have had 5 weeks without any contests, so it is hard to say whether pro-Obama sites are losing readers due to content or just lack of interest. It would be more interesting to see what happened to each site at the point when they endorsed.
I’m heavily-Clinton leaning; her actual stated policies on the economy, healthcare, and even Iraq are more progressive than Obama’s; his seem too “bipartisan” exactly where bipartisanship is worst. I don’t get the call for bipartisanpship; that’s how the progressive cause has gotten its butt handed to it over the past decades or so. Trying to play nice with people who are out for nasty.
But they seem to have gone off the deep end and, instead of aiming for McCain, taken out their anger at Clinton and her supporters. I do not get how Obama can try to play bipartisan “reach across the aisle” guy with Dick Cheney, and then lambaste Clinton for being same-old-same-old Republican-lite. That’s crazy.
But initially, I was certainly happy to support Clinton and prepared to support Obama should he win the nomination (fair and square, at least). But his supporters have gotten absolutely insane, just crazy hateful — and hateful toward women in particular. They can’t discuss her without cracks about cunt, slut, whore, dyke, bitch peppering the comment threads, and cracks about how she’ll bleed all over the legislation once a month. (Hello guys, she’s 60. She ain’t bleeding anywhere anymore.)
That’s what’s caused me to dig in further, and even say openly that I’ll support McCain in the fall. As a woman, I do not feel safe letting those foamy crazies get drunk and celebrate anywhere near me in November or after the Dem convention. I will feel like I have to lock my windows and doors and bring a tire iron with me to get to my car if those frothy nutcases are out celebrating. With McCain, it’ll be four more years of the same. If Obama wins the nom or the GE, I really do feel like it’ll be open season on women, and given the behavior of his foamy supporters online, I’m entirely convinced of it.
I do not see these guys as waking up after the general election and suddenly caring about women’s issues or the environment. People like that just do not go from “BURY THE BITCH!!!!!!” to “We must safeguard and care for Mother Nature.” It’s the same with Iraq — guys like that do not go from “GODDAMNED CUNT TAKE HER DOWN!” to “We should settle our differences peacfully.” At least McCain, having been a soldier, understands the full nature of war. Letting a bunch of angry woman-hating your guys who have never served making decisions about war only makes things worse historically. Armchair quarterbacks, the lot of them.
It’s hard to tell in between other variables, but it seems to me that I’ve had a small increase in traffic over the last few months, possibly just owing to the fact that it’s election season, but I do noticed in my comments and mail people who say they have come over because they heard I was neutral.
On the other hand, I’ve had some pretty hateful comments from people who read me out of the human race for doubting the importance of some bit of anti-Clinton spin, or failure to be impressed by some of Obama’s statements or stuff from Obama’s campaign. I don’t get that kind of thing when I gripe about Hillary. I’m not kind to either one of them, but I give them credit when I can for good stuff they’ve said or done.
I’ve never posted much at DKos, but I did one the other week talking about why we have to vote for the Dem nominee whoever it is, and I got a lot of very nasty comments about Hillary, but none about Obama.
You know, I still can’t force myself to endorse either one of them, but I can understand why Hillary supporters would want to stay away from Daily Kos when I see stuff like that. It certainly makes me want to me somewhere else.
It’s really too late to repair the damage with many Clinton supporters and Obama skeptics (and there is a difference). Obama did not reel in his netroots supporters and caucus whips in time. The old baby boomers represent a bigger piece of the electoral pie than the generation x or y or whatevers, they vote in greater relative numbers, they still have pretty good memories and they know how to get even. Believe me, those who have participated in the process are mad as hell. They went through the zippercentric politics of the late nineties and know political BS when they see it. Obama and Axelrod should just go ahead and continue their grand strategy and hope that outside events break Obama’s way– you know war, depression or general anarchy– and perhaps he will emerge victorious for a few weeks. This is really the stupidest Presidential election I have ever seen, inclusive of the last two. Moreover, in 2006 Democrats were handed a victory that they had really done nothing to merit. Their miserable record in the current Congress bears that out. What Casey Stengel once said about the early New York Mets applies to most of the Democratic Party: “Can’t anybody play this here game?” The “progressive” bloggers have their work cut out for them. I don’t think most of them have a clue.
I’m not EVEN a boomer. I’m the vanguard of Gen X — I say that I’m in the Ataria Wave of Gen x as opposed to the Nintendo Wave.
It might as well not matter according to most of the Obama trolls, though; the minute I open my 42-year old mouth in support of Clinton, I’m instantly 60 with my tits hanging down to my knees. (The fact that this characterization first was hurled at me on a supposed feminist blog by someone who called herself a progressive, left-wing feminist was the icing on the cake. It wasn’t the last time, that’s for sure.)
I won’t even mention the number of times I’ve read that I never graduated high school and caint spel gud. Last I looked, I had an advanced graduate degree in what is just about the hardest hard science there is. White-collar, with firmly blue- and pink-collar roots. I love sushi, feta cheese, buy cases of wine, and am a member of the creative class, but my entire family is lunchbucket from the word go.
And I’m supposed to think that those Obama lovers who are so quick to pile on me as old, dried-up, and blue-colalr and hence racist and stupid, are going to work to improve this country for the poor, unions, and the elderly?
Never in a million years. I’m a Gen X wine-tracker with a Silent Generation beer-track, ethnic working-class background. And from the grotesque disrespect shown to every single part of that by the Obama followers online (and offline), I just can’t bring myself to vote for him. It’s a write-in for Hillary for me, or an abstention from the presidential vote, or if I get really furious — which I’m good at — McCain. Like I said, I fear an Obama victory more than an Obama defeat. In defeat, his followers will go home and sulk. In victory, they will go out and “celebrate.” And this isn’t the fears of a racist old white woman, either. It’s the young white male frat-boy followers that scare the living hell out of me, and there are a lot of them.
It’s unfortunate that you’ve had those experiences Janis. I have many years of experience in online forums (going back to Usenet…which is pretty far in the mists.) There is a depressing predictability to some discussions that degenerate. Tone is difficult to convey and easy to misinterpret, and particular phrases can sometimes trigger people to go ballistic. A casual “obamabot” or “shrillary” tossed into a message can put people on the warpath from the word go, and things can get extremely toxic extremely quickly. I steer clear of commenting in most places where I feel the danger of that; it’s why I read, say, TalkLeft but never comment there. I know where it will go if I do. It’s worth, at times, going through and looking at the language and issues of partisans of your own candidate. There is a subset of Clinton supporters who go into Obama territory with fists swinging and make a truly terrible impression, just as I can certainly see Obama supporters who make mountains out of what I percieve to be molehills.
You say a lot of sweeping things about Obama supporters, and it may be worth remembering that the subset of people online with whom you’ve had nasty exchanges does not equal the millions of people who’ve voted for the man. In particular, the idea that there is gender-based hostility among Democrats to Clinton doesn’t ring true to me. There is no obvious policy daynight between the two of them on issues of women’s rights. Reason#1 for not supporting Clinton among people I know is her vote for the war in Iraq, and her general position as part of a Democratic leadership that failed to stand up to Bush; the converse is a major part of the appeal of Obama. I think there is a hostility among some Obama supporters to gender-based appeals to vote for Clinton - don’t get my daughter going about those, for example. Many Clinton supporters appear to be motivated by particular issues that she supports as well as a generalized fondness for the (Bill) Clinton era, and suspect that Obama is superficial. And quite a few are specifically inspired by the opportunity to elect the first female president.
With all of that said, I’m really going to be glad when this is over, and I hope it’s sooner rather than later.
I would hope traffic would be down at ALL the major blogs because REAL activists are out working their buns off on campaigns, whether national or local. We need to work for our candidates of choice, not spend most of our spare hours discussing the daily spatter with like-minded compadres.
Get away from your keyboard and volunteer somewhere. So we can win in November.
Data from http://icasualties.org/oif/
Since May 2006 through March 2008 there have been 1,700 US & UK Military Fatalities (and tens of thousands Iraqis)
Since November 2006 through March 2008 there have been 1,205 US & UK Military Fatalities (and tens of thousand Iraqis)
Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table in May 2006.
Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House on November 16, 2006.
Good job Nancy. I regret every word I have uttered in both support and defense of you.
Richard, The problem is that you don’t have any “trends” to analyze because your measurements are unmethodical. You’re just semi-randomly sticking lines on charts and asserting that you’ve discovered trends. I don’t understand what those lines on the Talk Left or MyDD charts are supposed to measure.
To take Daily Kos’ traffic: Even if we go along with your assumption that it’s meaningful somehow to track each week’s peak traffic, it’s still the case that not all that much is happening. Setting aside the primary day spike on the 3rd, the first week’s traffic topped out at about 1.2 million per day. The second and third weeks’ traffic topped out slightly above that, whereas the fourth week’s traffic topped out slightly below 1.2 million. You don’t know what this week’s peak will be, so why pretend that you do? What you’ve got, anyhow, is traffic going up and down. Like I said, it fluctuates.
See, here’s my problem: I don’t trust either Hillary or Obama to be what I want from a president, but I know all the way down to my cute little feet that letting John McCain win will be certain disaster.
I’d love to slap both of the Dem contenders for stupid mistakes they’ve made, crap strategies they’ve used, and so on - but this is about something a lot more important than being pissed off that the Dem candidate (and the candidate’s campaign manager) was a bit of a dick during the primaries, it’s about what will happen after 20 January 2009 - and I know that what will happen with McCain is a thing to be truly feared.
Yeah, I’ve defended them and I’ve criticized them (and yeah, Pelosi, too), and I will continue to defend them when they are unjustly attacked because they will be and trying to provide a counter-balance to the corporate media is why I blog. That doesn’t mean I’m in love with them.
See, they’re politicians. You’re an idiot if you expect to love them. What you do is try to push them to be better, because that’s your job. It’s why I particularly worry about all the partisans. Are they going to be prepared to watch them and push them? Or will they defend them even when they’re wrong and give them a pass when they turn out to be less than what they should be?
I stopped visiting pro Obama web sites because the hate they have for Clinton is not lesser than the hate the right wingers have for liberals.
I WILL NOT VOTE FOR OBAMA.
Alternate hypothesis: As Clinton’s fortunes have waned, her supporters are more likely to leave sites with a strong Obama bias, reading only sites more likely to reinforce their own hopes that Clinton still has a chance. Obama supporters are less likely to refrain from reading Clinton-leaning blogs, as they are more confident that their “side” will win, and so feel less threatened by prominent voices in the blogosphere saying otherwise.
I suspect that if the positions in the race were reversed and Clinton were the frontrunner, you’d see the opposite effect.
I have changed my viewing but not because a web blog supports a particular candidate but because of the dishonesty in the reporting (on both sides) that I (foolishly) previously thought was unique to the extreme right wing.
It was once my dream to attend YearlyKOS and possible meet some of the liberal bloggers that I read and listened to regularly. Not any more. Now I realize that I really don’t know who they are. They have thrown away their integrity so cheaply.
Those blogs are also great examples of what I’ve thought, felt, and said when I’ve heard some liberal women practically fall over themselves praising them and others for ripping into George Bush and whatnot: Don’t be so sure they’re on your side.
And the real-life ones? Keith Olberman? Bill Maher? The sainted and much-praised Jon Stewart?
Just because they’re liberal about everything else doesn’t make them a friend to women. Get any of them talking about women and then see how liberal they are.
Seriously — as far as women are concerned, there are two parties: those that hate us, and those that don’t. And the boundary line dividing those two parties doesn’t have a damned thing to do with the line dividing Democrat from Republican, or liberal from conservative.
I used to think the same thing about DKos and TPM — and HuffPo, being run by an ex-trophy wife who got to where she is today by stabbing female competition in the back, was more of the same.
Don’t ever assume that just because someone claims to be a liberal or hates the same guys you hate that they are a friend to women. Don’t ever make that assumption. The guys that rant about Bush’s warmongering will still hate the shit out of that bitch who didn’t give them a blowjob in the back of their limo, and the monied trophy wife who votes Democrat will still take out the long knives when another, more capable woman, shows up — especially if the bitch’s husband outranks hers.
30 and 40% drops are due to the anti-Clinton misogyny and hate. It has to be intentional. A boys’ joke or something.
John Aravosis and Booman went insane or something. I can’t read them any more.
these days everyone’s insane in blogtopia and yes i coined that phrase.
i have tried so hard to maintain neutrality and balance on skippy…tho i haven’t stopped trying to call bullshit when i see it.
but i find that when i call bullshit on obama, the obama supporters descend on my comments section and accuse me of the worst kind of hatred. and when i call bullshit on clinton, i get the exact same kind of comments, the exact same intensity, the exact same vitriol, only from clinton supporters.
i have pleaded with blogtopia and yes i coined that phrase, to stop fighting with each other and to concentrate on the prize: ie, beating mclame.
personally, i don’t like either obama or clinton…i feel they are both right of center and in the corporate pockets.
i feel clinton has relied on consultants to her detriment. as for obama, if there’s one thing less trustworthy than a politician from washington, it’s a poltician from chicago.
both have conducted their campaigns poorly and in a manner not befitting democrats in today’s toxic gop atmosphere. if we can’t rise above the garbage we are the garbage.
No, Obama supporters are much more sensitive to criticism of their candidate. Clinton supporters are used to it. It’s been the same for 16 years. We just started to fight back. They are so similar in their faults it’s hypocritical to call out Clinton and not Obama. If Clinton lies, Obama does too but no one can say that. If Clinton triangulates, Obama does worse but you can’t say that. If the Clintons are evasive, Obama is worse, he hasn’t told us anything in this campaign. There’s a double standard and Clinton supporters just counter the bias. If they both stopped attacking each other, we’d get somewhere.
I’m a HRC supporter, but I’ll vote for Obama if he gets the nomination. (I’d prefer to see them both get over it and go on the same ticket.)
Personally though, I no longer read:
– The Huffington Post (Arianna’s gross Clinton hatred is surpassed only by her endless name-dropping, her reliance on clueless screenwriters as political bloggers, and the deceptive headlines).
–Buzzflash editorials (It’s like they were written by whiny, outraged teenagers. And the headlining is pathetic. The site’s tanking quality-wise, and it was never anything but linked news stories anyway.)
– Daily Kos (Always was an utterly, totally, boring and irrelevant site).
–Americablog (Only relevant on gay or voting issues).
– I’ve also quit watching Keith Olberman (who was already sliding over the edge into hysteria with his endless, ranting “special commentaries.”
–And Bill Mahr’s turned into a buffoon lately as well.
It was always arrogant to assume that internet journalism wouldn’t become as empty, biased, and downright dirt stupid as traditional print and broadcast media. Still, I’ve been disappointed in the net ‘roots,’ and certain liberal blogging pundits who’ve revealed themselves to be utter, foaming idiots.
I have also refrained from visiting dKos & Americablog, because they were suddenly and without reason strident in their support of BO. I didn’t want to contribute to their traffic and as the great and powerful Kos said, and I paraphrase, “the blogosphere is a big place, they can find another site”. And so I have.
What’s come over people? My favorite site used to be Americablog. A couple of times I defended Hillary against being called “Billary”, a “bitch”, and an “f-ing c_nt” and was banned from commenting. I’m not exaggerating at all. People have become so venomous against Hillary they are using more vicious epithets than the GOP used in the 90’s. They’re even re-writing history and claiming Bill Clinton’s presidency was a nightmarish period. Even more crazy, they are constantly whipping up urban legends like Hillary photo-shopped Obama’s picture for some racist negative ad, and claiming that Bill Clinton guest-hosted for Rush Limbaugh. I’m not kidding, the Obamabots have gone psycho.
People on both sides of this race are out of the minds. But I think all of you (on both sides) need to watch your incredibly broad generalizations about each side’s supporters.
Obama supporters aren’t all sexist brats who hate Hillary passionately. Or “have gone psycho” (Remember there are slightly more of them than there are Hillary supporters)
And Clinton supporters aren’t all ignorant, defensive, female and/or racist.
Obviously the name calling is incredibly childish. Billary, Obamabots, Clintonistas are all absurd. The partisans from neither side want to admit that people have genuine and valid reasons for supporting the other candidate.
So please, just stop.
I’m an Obama supporter, but I find the vitriol-on both sides-pretty horrifying. However, I’d tell anyone who hates Kos for the Hillaryhatred to visit Taylor Marsh before assuming that Clinton voters are always victims in the blog wars.
The truth is, the sites dont need to be nonpartisan. They were founded to advocate for whatever point of view they choose. Its notable that Kos (an Obama supporter) considers MyDD (a Clinton blog) as his “blogfather.” I can also say that plenty of Obama voters left MyDD (some of their commenters are just as bad as the worst Obama supporters), but those defections were offset by the Clinton bloggers boycott of Kos.
I wanted to say to Janis–I’m sorry you’ve been turned off by Obama’s supporters. But the idea that he should be policing the netroots to make sure everyone stays in line is crazy. Supporters arent surrogates or staffers. He’s got millions of supporters, and while they all like him, most won’t censor themselves for him either.
And I hope you will think twice before declaring your support for McCain over Obama. McCain, who cheated on and divorced his wife after she was disabled in a car accident in order to marry a much younger, wealthy beauty queen (who, it turns out, he’s said some pretty horrible things about). McCain who, now that he’s sucking up to the Religious Right, believes a woman’s place is in the home. McCain who has publically and repeatedly declared his desire to overturn Roe v Wade and make abortion illegal.
Obama has some obnoxious supporters who will never have a place in his cabinet. McCain is a fundamentalist neo-con. The next president will appoint at least ONE supreme court justice. Probably two. Those two come from the so called “liberal” wing of the court. Two more justices, and the conservatives have a super majority with which to push us all back to the 1950s.
And to expand a bit on Kim, if EITHER side is willing to be “pushed back to the 1950’s” in order to protest their candidate not getting the nomination is flat out silly.
There’s minimal difference in the policy proposals put forward by the two Democratic candidates. The only real differences are ones of style and some foreign policy. McCain is radically different from both. An extremely hawkish neo-con, anti-abortion, anti-regulation, anti-universal health care, the list goes on and on and on.
Richard, I don’t know if your traffic numbers are correct but I can tell you that the trend is certainly one that I’ve contributed to. Kos, Huffpo and Americablog were 3 absolute staples in my day. I not only visited them frequently every day but I also donated to 2 of them (more than once in the case of AmericaBlog).
I prefer Clinton as the candidate but I don’t have a problem with Obama. I think both of them would do a creditable job and do the Dems proud. I don’t like to see either of them (or their supporters) hit with baseless ad hominem attacks so I’ve had to stop visiting all 3 of those sites. While there are some commenters who are guilty of this who are Clinton supporters, it’s the Obama supporters (on the 3 sites mentioned above) who are guilty of the vast majority of rabid and personal attacks if anyone dares to say they are a Clinton supporter. The Obama supporters (generally the least literate of them) seem to have taken to heart the polls that say Clinton’s supporters are old and unintelligent. Several times when I corrected something they’ve said about Clinton that was patently false, I’ve been flamed by Obama supporters who have gleefully told me that I’m an old, stoopid woman.
It’s not just the attacks that have driven me from the sites though.. primarily, it’s the intentionally slanted reporting on those sites. I’d be no more happy if I was on a Clinton-friendly site and saw them doing the same slanted stories. You can be pro-Clinton without having any need to slash and burn Obama (and vice versa).
I’ve had a number of e-mails from people I frequently talked to on AmericaBlog who are Obama supporters who have also left the site for the same reason I have. It pains them to see the attacks on Clinton and the fact that their favorite site is so skewed.
I could agree more. I was a regular reader on both DKos and America Blog. I find I get along much better with the more neutral sites.
For me, trying to find out more about Obama in his book “Audacity of Hope” Just about finished reading it. Here, it has many passages that are as controversial as his Reverend Wright friend although not talked about. This ideal that Obama is not Islamic or has absolutely no affinity to Islam is brought forward by Obama himself in the last chapter page 315.
Get this, Obama makes the claim that Islamic Law is the more traditional principles of social organization. Did you get that America.
Strikingly, other countries that reject American efforts should follow their own path turning to more traditional principles of social organization, like Islamic law.
Sheesh, Islamic law, more traditional principles of social organization. What happened to the Christian stuff???
Comment by Megalomania — April 2, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
Don’t worry…the republicans will make sure his books are aired fully…
Kinda makes Hillary’s “it takes a village” and her living the American Dream in going from middle class to wealthy, all the Clintons’ own intellectual capacities and hard work pale in comparison, huh?
I have a habit of being “right” as is evidenced by my warning about Bush looong before he was elected; I was shocked that he turned out to be even worse than I expected.
I’m TELLING people, that Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing…
But no, obviously Americans who trust the MSM way more than their own reading comprehension, will get exactly what they deserve..just as with George W. bush….
Wow, I don’t think the US can handle another “uniter”, who appeals to emotional IQ, and not Intellectual IQ as Hillary does.
God Save us.
And, as far as naysayers for the trends Richard is putting out there, do research for yourself http://www.alexa.com
The first thing I’d point out, is look at blogs that were relatively obscure before this election…those pro-Hillary, or neutral blogs have double digit increased…
After this “Markos” crap “hillary darkened Obama’s skin” which is a paranoid, liberal version of what the neo-con’s pull, I have nothing but disgust for him.
Allowing such filth against a candidate who has been solidly pro-women’s rights, gay rights, pro-choice is nothing short of DISGUSTING and PATHETIC.
I’m an Obama supporter, but I find the vitriol-on both sides-pretty horrifying. However, I’d tell anyone who hates Kos for the Hillaryhatred to visit Taylor Marsh before assuming that Clinton voters are always victims in the blog wars.
Kim
—————————-
Kim, I post at TaylorMarsh every day, and you disrespect us with this inference.
It’s positive, caring, and a ton of empathy is on display. I have a strong suspicion you don’t visit that blog…maybe not ever.
You’d be hardpressed to find nasty comments towards Obama, as you would the personal attacks against Hillary on Dkos, and Huffpo.
What’s more, when I cast my vote in 2008, it won’t be a vote for McCain, but a vote AGAINST OBama.
The Democratic party has no room for people who encourages reverse racism, and character assasination.
Disgusting obama!
If BO is the nominee, I plan on writing in Hillary’s name on the ballot. I think that BO is a little too precious for me and I don’t trust his judgment when it comes to the inner circle that will surround him. Maybe others will feel this way, too. It’s not that my feelings about BO are written in stone, but as far as I am concerned, it’s not BO, not this year. Maybe in a few years, he will have matured as a candidate and a person. Besides, there is nothing to his resume’………that a few years can’t fix.
You might consider that as soon as it became apparent Obama might be the likely nominee, as he steadily built up his lead, less people want to or need to follow the news everyday.
I was a regular reader of Kos, Americablog, HuffingtonPost, but have since stopped going to those sites directly on a regular basis. I am leaning (and will probably vote for) Obama (I live in PA), but I was shocked at the shrill, hateful, petty postings and comments on these sites that have been aimed at Clinton. Granted, Clinton hasn’t run the campaign that was expected of her, but none of the candidates have been perfect. I have posted comments on those sites stating how distasteful, immature and counter-productive to the debate, the postings had become and was attacked by commenters who seemed truly rabid with blind Clinton-hate. Who wants to read that crap everyday? Aren’t they tired of writing and commenting with the same words all the time?
For the most part, I stick to Eschaton, where the postings and comments have been pretty reasonable in emotion (and accuracy). As always, my day is not complete without a dose of the excellent Glenn Greenwald at Salon.