Obama beats McCain by five to one ... on social networking sites

[sabra]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h2YcYg5gpbTouzUhIVpZl24U3VLg

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Democrat Barack Obama has a "tremendous advantage" over Republican John McCain in the race for the White House -- at least in terms of friends on social networking sites, a report showed Monday.

"As of early September, Obama has more than a five-to-one lead over McCain in number of friends" on the two most popular US social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace, the report by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism said.

Obama, 47, had 1.7 million Facebook supporters and 510,000 MySpace friends, compared to 309,000 and 88,000 respectively on the two popular Internet sites for 72-year-old McCain, the report said.

"The appeal to young people, getting himself known and talked about on social networking websites, activating support online and taking that activity offline by getting people to hold community events... these aspects were very, very developed at the start of Obama's campaign," Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, told AFP.

"McCain is trying to close the gap now but it's a little late in the game," she added.

[Upton]

1. The big question is

are the young people going to come out and vote?

[heliarc]

2. I would imagine that young people

who are in school or only use a cell phone may be under represented in polling data. I'm not sure how polling firms really get to young people. Anybody have a more informed understanding of this?

[chiefofclarinet]

3. There's a small problem here

Don't go after me for saying this. I'm a college student and I do use Facebook.

Using Facebook and MySpace as a gauge for youth can inflate the numbers a bit. In both sites, high schoolers can join, and unless they are older seniors in high school, they cannot vote. Plus, the nature of the groups on Facebook, unlike DU, is that people join, and forget about them. I have 40+ groups in my account, and it's been months since I checked any of them. Also, "friends" on Facebook can range from spouses and best friends to people you don't know and enemies. (Believe me, I had about 5 people I don't know as "friends" on my account and had 1 enemy as a friend for a while.) It's too much work to sort through them, so many people randomly accept "friend requests."

I do agree that Obama has an edge with the youth vote. However, I would avoid using Facebook and MySpace as a gauge.

[President Decider]

4. YET THE POLLSTERS ARE TELLING US THIS ELECTION IS TIED .... BULLSHIT!