Which candidates are REALLY top tier? (Digg's election)

Nathyn

Thinker
N
Joined
Nov 19, 2006
Messages
141
I don't know if this has been posted yet (I searched but couldn't find it), but I found something interesting a while back.

Digg.com has an ongoing election:
http://digg.com/elections/

Anyone who can join Digg can choose a candidate as a "friend," to cast their vote.

Anyway, given the popularity of Digg (117th most visited site, according to Alexa) and its demographic (young, college-educated technogeeks), I think the results are pretty intriguing.

The media repeatedly refers to Obama, Hillary Clinton, Giuliani, and Romney as "top tier."

But their conclusions are based upon polls among the general population of likely voters -- not targetting those likely voters who actually know where the candidates stand and decide based upon that. In such a poll, people like Giuliani and Hillary are going to automatically get a lead over people like Obama and Ron Paul, not because they're genuinely popular, but simply because of name-recognition.

Grassroots popularity is more important in the long-run than name-recognition. Think back to the 2000 elections: George Bush was relatively unknown early in the election, but he won due to grassroots support.

And when you look at grassroots groups like the DailyKos or Free Republic, Kucinich is every bit a "top tier" candidate as any other, and the same goes for Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Mike Huckabee.

In conclusion, on the Democratic side, while the media seems to be casting its vote for Hillary, I think Obama has a greater likelihood of winning the primary. Because he's got a lot of name-recognition from his early announcement and a lot of media coverage leading up to the primaries, while at the same time seems to be supported by a genuine grassroots movement. If Kucinich drops out of the race due to lack of funding, it would even further solidify Obama's lead over Hillary, as he'd have full control of the partisan vote. Meanwhile, Hillary would end up splitting the independent vote with John Edwards, and possibly even a few independent votes could go towards Obama.

Considering the recent growth of the youth vote, the Digg results above are even more striking.
 
I never personally participated in Digg. This does show what type of internet support a candidate has.
 
Nathyn said:
Considering the recent growth of the youth vote, the Digg results above are even more striking.
Click to expand...

Really? How much has the youth vote grown? From what I've heard, young people are less likely to vote. Some actual numbers would be interesting.
 
Nathyn said:
"The media repeatedly refers to Obama, Hillary Clinton, Giuliani, and Romney as "top tier."

But their conclusions are based upon polls among the general population of likely voters"
Click to expand...

That sounds like a good plan.

Nathyn said:
Anyway, given the popularity of Digg (117th most visited site, according to Alexa) and its demographic (young, college-educated technogeeks), I think the results are pretty intriguing.
Click to expand...
Nathyn said:
But their conclusions are based upon polls among the general population of likely voters -- not targetting those likely voters who actually know where the candidates stand and decide based upon that.
Click to expand...
Nathyn said:
Considering the recent growth of the youth vote, the Digg results above are even more striking.
Click to expand...

"Young, college-educated technogeeks" are an interesting demographic, but I can't imagine why you think they would make a more prophetic poll population than "a representative sample of people likely to vote". Why would technogeeks be more likely than the average person to understand and care about political issues? More importantly, why would they be more influential among other voters than the average likely-to-vote person? Are you even sure that they are likely to vote themselves? Young people may be more likely to vote than they used to be, but they are still less likely to vote than older people.

When Digg says "Ron Paul" and Gallup says "Hillary Clinton", I'll go with Gallup:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/102862/Democratic-Candidates-Look-Good-Latest-2008-Trial-Heats.aspx?

Nathyn said:
In such a poll, people like Giuliani and Hillary are going to automatically get a lead over people like Obama and Ron Paul, not because they're genuinely popular, but simply because of name-recognition.

Grassroots popularity is more important in the long-run than name-recognition. Think back to the 2000 elections: George Bush was relatively unknown early in the election, but he won due to grassroots support.
Click to expand...

The popularity/name recognition dichotomy is interesting. However, I’m not sure that your assertion that “grassroots popularity is more important in the long-run than name-recognition” is true.

Bush didn't have name recognition? He was governor of Texas and the brother of the governor of Florida. He was the son of a former president--he even had the same name. Practically every person of voting age in America had heard the name “George Bush!”
 
Yeah, young people don't vote.

Which is really annoying, because I like politics. The best discussion I get is with my aunt :p .
 
HA! Digg hardly shows what candidates are REALLY top tier. Digg represents a very niche audience (relatively speaking) of mostly techies (from when Digg was a purely geek/technology site) and young internet users, and alot of non-americans.

Polls taken from a cross section of the voting population solely in the United States are a MUCH better indicator of the real top-tier candidates.
 
NeoRicen said:
HA! Digg hardly shows what candidates are REALLY top tier. Digg represents a very niche audience (relatively speaking) of mostly techies (from when Digg was a purely geek/technology site) and young internet users, and alot of non-americans.

Polls taken from a cross section of the voting population solely in the United States are a MUCH better indicator of the real top-tier candidates.
Click to expand...

Good point. One of the big Ron Paul backers on this forum is a German.
 
gtc said:
Very funny.
Click to expand...


No - seriously: I have no Idea why people are hyping Digg all
the time. I don't consider it as a good source for news. Might
be a Gameboy-Generation thingy.

Added:

Anyway - most potential voters over 30 probably might think
the same way. So I see no sense at all to hype Ron Paul at
this site for the "older Generation". And it's time to address
them as well - which might not work via the Internet ...

And concerning the youngsters - if they didn't stumble over
Ron Paul on the Internet yet, then there's no hope for them
anyway. It's really hard to miss Dr. Paul on the Internet - and
for some it's even getting annoying. So this could fire back in
some ways ...

Time to focus on the "older" voters as well - time isn't our
friend in this case...
 
Last edited:
Oliver said:
So? ... Paul's ancestors are Germans as well. At least from
his Grandfathers side...
Click to expand...
His point is that you can't vote for him. International support means NOTHING when it comes to determining top-tier candidates as they can't influence the vote.
 
NeoRicen said:
His point is that you can't vote for him. International support means NOTHING when it comes to determining top-tier candidates as they can't influence the vote.
Click to expand...


When it comes to "Top Tier" candidates, no average voter has
influence about what the media presents as "Top Tiers". No matter
if you can vote or not. You should've figured this out by now.

The only way to change this is to get enough support so the media
can't ignore someone any longer - and even then it's very hard to
make a difference, thanks to "democracy". And it doesn't matter
if you can vote or not to push someone. That's what I'm doing.
 
Last edited:
Oliver said:
When it comes to "Top Tier" candidates, no average voter has
influence about what the media presents as "Top Tiers". No matter
if you can vote or not. You should've figured this out by now.

The only way to change this is to get enough support so the media
can't ignore someone any longer - and even then it's very hard to
make a difference, thanks to "democracy". And it doesn't matter
if you can vote or not to push someone. That's what I'm doing.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that having one vote in a nation of millions with the same one vote is not a lot of power, or are you saying that the media misrepresent voter preference?

Oh, and is everyone using "Top Tier" to mean "candidates most likely to win the election" or are some using it to mean "candidates whom I think should win the election"? Nathyn, how are you using it?
 
juniper_ann said:
Are you saying that having one vote in a nation of millions with the same one vote is not a lot of power, or are you saying that the media misrepresent voter preference?

Oh, and is everyone using "Top Tier" to mean "candidates most likely to win the election" or are some using it to mean "candidates whom I think should win the election"? Nathyn, how are you using it?
Click to expand...


I'm saying that you don't even know half of the people who
are running for president. Why is that? Because the Media
doesn't cover them. Keyes is a good example for that. Also
the amount of coverage candidates get - or the amount of
questions people get in the debates - is a good example for
a misconception in this system.

If I tell 100 people about Candidate X, I probably had much
more influence concerning the elections than just give a
vote to a computer.
 
Oliver said:
I'm saying that you don't even know half of the people who are running for president. Why is that? Because the Media
doesn't cover them. Keyes is a good example for that.
Click to expand...
Keyes!? You think people would vote for that idiot if only they knew more about him? You should have seen his comical run for Senator here!

:dl:
 
OK, so I admit that in my partisanship my original argument doesn't really follow.

I still think it's interesting, though, that this one very large group of well-informed young people are very, very different from the general population.

Oliver said:
No - seriously: I have no Idea why people are hyping Digg all
the time. I don't consider it as a good source for news. Might
be a Gameboy-Generation thingy.

Added:

Anyway - most potential voters over 30 probably might think
the same way. So I see no sense at all to hype Ron Paul at
this site for the "older Generation". And it's time to address
them as well - which might not work via the Internet ...

And concerning the youngsters - if they didn't stumble over
Ron Paul on the Internet yet, then there's no hope for them
anyway. It's really hard to miss Dr. Paul on the Internet - and
for some it's even getting annoying. So this could fire back in
some ways ...

Time to focus on the "older" voters as well - time isn't our
friend in this case...
Click to expand...
I used to think the way you do.

The problem is that you're not selecting the right tabs. If you just go to Digg's main page, yeah, who the hell cares about the Wii, Steve Jobs, or some randomly funny image on the net?

Their politics page is very informative:
http://digg.com/politics

I go there more often than I check CNN. It's like a Drudge report run by smart people.
 
Your mistake there is calling them well-informed and smart. They are far from it.
 
If Digg was true indicator of tangible support, Ron Paul would be elected with 90% of the vote and replicate into 535 Paul bots to occupy congress. I actually like Paul on a personal level and believe he is a model citizen worthy of emulation (what he does, not what he thinks). Does that mean he'd be a good President? Nope. Dean had far more money and support than Paul did in the 04' primaries comparatively and was crushed. Cynically speaking, I hope Paul supporters pressure him into a third party ticket so he spoils.
 
Last edited:
WildCat said:
Keyes!? You think people would vote for that idiot if only they knew more about him? You should have seen his comical run for Senator here!

:dl:
Click to expand...

If nobody knows about you then you get zero votes!!

Of course if the lesser known candidates were tossed around the television like they do Hillery they would get more votes!

The only reason i even heard of Ron Paul is because while researching 9/11 i couldnt help but notice the amount of people who supported him in there Sigs!

Thank God for the internet, otherwise i would have never known that more then 4 poeple can run for president!:boxedin:=Me without internet!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom