No doubt many of you have heard about the Disappearing Romney website, as noted on Slate here and DK here, for example. In case the concept isn't obvious, the DR site allows one to track the decline in FB "Likes" for 'Rmoney' in real time. So following up on this earlier SNLC on FB and major political figures in the recent election, I thought to revisit them for this SNLC (being exceptionally lazy now, not to mention short of time). So how do things look now with President Obama, Vice-President Biden, Senator Claire McCaskill, et al. on FB? Well....
First, here were the numbers from my 10/20/12 SNLC:
3:15 PM CDT:
Barack Obama: 31,078,969
Mitt Romney: 10,132,199
9:31 PM CDT:
Obama: 31,088,761
Romney: 10,175,597
Compare with today:
12:57 PM CST:
Barack Obama: 33,429,940
Mitt Romney: 11,996,873
4:46 PM CST:
Barack Obama: 33,438,381
Mitt Romney: 11,995,743
Obviously both candidates gained prior to the election, so no surprise that the total for both is higher even well after the election. But you can see that in a little less than 4 hours, 'Rmoney' lost 1138 "Likes", while President Obama gained 8441. Granted, it's always better to be associated with a winner than a loser (hmmm, no wonder 3CM has no friends or can't get a date - but he digresses, as usual).
Likewise, looking at other candidates, and taking #'s from the last SNLC again, going on to the VP candidates:
10/20/12:
Joe Biden: 470,398
Paul Ryan VP: 4,927,154
"Paul Ryan Is A Douchebag": 104,333
"Joe Biden is a Moron": 409
11/17/12:
12:57 PM:
Joe Biden: 528.355
Paul Ryan VP: 5,140,900
"Paul Ryan Is A Douchebag": 116,708
"Joe Biden is a Moron": 641
5:01 PM:
Joe Biden: 528,429
Paul Ryan VP: 5,140,334
"Paul Ryan Is A Douchebag": 116,747
"Joe Biden is a Moron": 641
So in the intervening 4 weeks,
Joe Biden: 470,398
Paul Ryan VP: 4,927,154
From MO-Sen:
10/20/12, 9:35 PM:
Claire McCaskill: 55,789
Senator Claire McCaskill: 13,602
Todd Akin: 67,382
Congressman Todd Akin: 5,208
Todd Akin Should Step Down: 771
Citizens for a McCaskill-free Missouri: 1,041
11/17/12. 5:06 PM:
Claire McCaskill: 66,462
Senator Claire McCaskill: 14,091
Todd Akin: 71,882
Congressman Todd Akin: 5,217
Todd Akin Should Step Down: 803
Citizens for a McCaskill-free Missouri: 1,027
In the last 4 weeks, Claire's "Likes" quotient obviously picked up nicely, about 20% from before. But so did those of the "legitimate rapist", about 7%. It does say something about the disconnect between FB likes and the electorate that in the direct comparison of "Claire McCaskill" and "Todd Akin", the latter is still smoking the former. But if one consolidates the respective pairs for each person, and assuming that there are no duplicates (not a safe assumption), then Claire comes out a bit ahead, by ~3500 "Likes".
Likewise, the fact that President Obama smacks down 'Rmoney' in FB "Likes" by 3:1 does not reflect in the popular vote, which was much, much closer by comparison, as noted from The Guardian here:
Barack Obama: 62,615,406
Mitt Romney: 59,142,004
I guess so much for the idea of FB reflecting reality, huh? With that, time for the usual SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories of the week.....