Thanks to Francesco from http://italians4ronpaul.blogspot.com/
YouTube popularity of 2008 Candidates
Written by maranelloboy
The importance of YouTube
Alexa, a website information page, ranks YouTube as the 4th most visited English language website as well as 4th in the top 500 US web pages. YouTube received, according to the website TrafficEstimate, some 199.900.000 hits over the last 30 days alone. By contrast, google.com received 332.000.000 hits over that same period of time, Yahoo! 551.545.000, MySpace 148.554.000 and Facebook 120.370.000. In other words, YouTube is a serious hit. Certainly, it is mostly young people who use it and many of its videos are not at all about politics, but is forms a decisive factor nonetheless. It is vital to delve more into comparing the candidates in YouTube performance, because the video channel shows videos by candidates’ enthusiasts, TV and radio interviews, debate clips, official campaign messages and much more. This means this channel filled with information and discussion represents one of the clearest manifestations of what many do to explore candidates by themselves, out of the control and steering by mainstream media outlets. Additionally, YouTube has a special section of its website dedicated to the 2008 candidates accessible from the home page, which will likely increase the percentage of surfers on YouTube that will take a glance at the candidates. Also, the fact that YouTube has and will partner with some of the actual debates on TV made the link of YouTube and political awakening much stronger and will provide for a steady increase in 2008 Presidential election material on the website.
Now we have established that support from YouTubers is a rather decisive factor in the success of any campaign, the most important question stemming from this is: which of the candidates enjoys most popularity of YouTube?
Methodology of this research
• I have selected the 5 candidates with most YouTube channel views.
• The videos included in this overview are those by the candidates’ campaign, those made by YouTube users themselves, reproductions and remixes of TV and radio debates as well as interviews addressing the candidate in question specifically etc.
• The videos excluded from this overview are those which have nothing to do with the candidate but were tagged as such, those which clearly and unfairly attempt at ridiculing or discrediting the candidate in question and videos such as Obama girl, Giuliani girl and Paul girl, which are not about politics.
• What is left after this screening is a number of videos of which I have taken the 50 most watched per candidate to compile the total number of views.
Please verify my selections for yourself to see how well or not I filtered the videos according to above search criteria. You can do this simply by inserting the below given names of videos in the search engine of YouTube or by typing the full name of the candidate in the search engine and subsequently sorting the videos by popularity.
The results given by YouTube for candidates’ channels’ views are approximately as follows as of October 2, 2007:
Dennis Kucinich 525.000
Mike Gravel 681.000
Barack Obama 11.200.000
Hillary Clinton 928.000
Rudy Giuliani 656.000
Ron Paul 4.345.000
Mitt Romney 785.000
John Edwards 630.000
Bill Richardson 551.000
Fred Thompson 88.000
Sam Brownback 500.000
Tom Tancredo 437.000
Joe Biden 320.000
Chris Dodd 430.000
Alan Keyes 580
John McCain 483.000
Duncan Hunter 373.000
Mike Huckabee 205.000
Selecting the top 5 candidates, we are left with Ron Paul, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani. Why not Mike Gravel, he has the 5th highest amount of views? Well, Giuliani keeps being promoted by the media as the GOP frontrunner, so he really needs to be included in this overview to stand the test of reality. We all know Gravel does not need a test of reality, he is as real and frank as they get. In an update of this article which I will write soon, I promise ALL candidates will be included. My sincere apologies for now to Mike Gravel and his fans.
Ron Paul – 1st
Ron Paul: Stop Dreaming (508.000); Ron Paul Courageously Speaks the Truth (447.000); Ron Paul is Bill Maher’s New Hero (403.000); Candidates @ Google with Ron Paul (282.000); Ron Paul Ownz the Federal Reserve (242.000); Congressman Ron Paul at the First GOP Republican Debate (235.000); Ron Paul in CNN Debate on June 5, 2007 (230.000); Ron Paul and Bill O’Reilly Duke it Out (225.000); Ron Paul in Debate at Reagan Library (215.000); Ron Paul: Don’t Tread on Me (205.000); Educating Rudy (200.000); Rep. Ron Paul for President: Real Time with Bill Maher (185.000); Freedom is Popular (180.000); YouChoose ’08 Spotlight: Ron Paul on Civil Liberties (180.000); If you Google Ron Paul (180.000); Ron Paul: When in the Course of Human Events (160.000); Educating Rudy Press Conference (160.000); Leading the Cause of Freedom in Iowa (160.000); YouChoose ’08 Spotlight: Ron Paul on Entitlements (150.000); Texas republican slams Bush’ demented philosophy of conquest (130.000); YouChoose ’08 Spotlight: Ron Paul on Entitlements (130.000)
TOTAL = 4.627.000 views total / 231.350 views per video average
Hillary Clinton – 2nd
Join the Hillary Clinton 2008 MySpace (1.066.000); I Need Your Advice (650.000); Pick My Campaign Song: Round 2 (350.000); Hillary on Oil Profits (313.000); Hillary on Dick Cheney and Diplomacy (155.000); Invisible (142.000); Hillary Clinton at AFL-CIO Forum (102.000); Hillary’s Top Ten Campaign Promises (89.000); Hillary Clinton – The Surge is Working Prepare for New War (88.000); Hillary Clinton’s Views on Going to War, Saddam and WMD (86.000); Hillary Clinton on Seventh-Day Adventist (80.000); Clinton/Obama: Debate for the Black Vote: (Part 1) - Hair (54.000); A Special Message from Bill Clinton (53.000); CNN/YouTube Debate: Hillary on Meeting With Foreign Leaders (52.000); Women@Google (46.000); Sen. Clinton on Speaks on the House Floor on Higher Education (41.000); Hillary on Health Care (35.000); Hillary Clinton announces Run for Presidency (35.000); Hillary “I’m Your Girl” (31.000); Hillary Clinton announces run for President (31.000)
TOTAL = 3.499.000 views total / 174.950 views per video average
Barack Obama – 3rd
Barack Obama YouTube spotlight (566.000); Barack Obama: My Plans for 2008 (370.000); Obama on Iraq, Opposition from the Start (250.000); Meet Barack Obama (200.000); Barack Obama 2004 Democratic National Convention Part 1 (190.000); First Obama Presidential Ad (165.000); Barack Obama at the AFL-CIO Presidential Forum (143.000); Barack Obama 2004 Democratic National Convention Part 2 (126.000); Barack: Truth on Iraq (110.000); Barack Obama: The Time for Judgment in Iraq (95.000); Obama: Rebuilding New Orleans: Two Years Later (77.000); Barack Obama with Jay (76.000); Barack Obama (74.000); Senator Obama on the Today Show (73.000); 2002 Barack Obama Interview: Against Iraq (69.000); Barack Obama: Campaign Posters (68.000); Barack Obama in His Own Words (65.000); University of New Hampshire Rally (62.000); Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama: You Decide (55.000); Healthcare Address in Iowa City (51.000)
TOTAL = 2.817.000 views total / 140.850 views per video average
Mitt Romney – 4th
Romney: America’s Single Greatest Challenge? (465.000); The Real Romney? (194.000); Gov. Romney Interview with Jan Mickelson (193.000); Rev Sharpton on Romney’s Religion (96.000); Rally for Romney (76.000); “Ocean” (73.000); Romney Calls out Media Bias (64.000); Romney’s First Webkinz (64.000); “Unplugged” (54.000); Romney on Abortion – 2002 (47.000); Romney Takes on Religion Heckler (47.000); Romney’s First Ad (37.000); What I believe is America’s Greatest Challenge (36.000); Gov. Romney on the Tonight Show – Highlights (35.000); Luntz – Romney the Winner (35.000); Mitt Romney and Mormonism (28.000); “Change begins with us” (26.000); Torture Applause and “Double Guantanamo” (25.000); Today On the Trail w/ Gov. Mitt Romney (25.000); Mitt Romney enters the “No Spin Zone” (24.000)
TOTAL = 1.644.000 views total / 82.200 views per video average
Rudy Giuliani – 5th
You Choose ’08 Spotlight: Rudy on his 12 Commitments (360.000); Giuliani on Public Funding of Abortion (170.000); Rudy Defends Tax-Cut Claims (62.000); Rudy Giuliani on Non-Binding Resolutions (50.000); Rudy Giuliani Responds to Ron Paul (34.000); Rudy Giuliani on 9/11 Rescue Workers (25.000); Giuliani on Public Funding of Abortion (25.000); A Proven Record (18.000); Judith Giuliani at New York City Fundraiser (16.000); Rudy Giuliani announces law suit against gun companies (15.000); Giuliani on abortion (13.000); Giuliani “We Need to Train US Military to Nation Build” (13.000); Rudy on Lowering Taxes: Part 1 (13.000); Rudy Giuliani on Gun Control and NRA (12.000); Rudy Giuliani on Immigration: To end of not to end? (8.500); Rudy: American Foreign Policy (8.500); Rudy Speaks at Houston Baptist University (8.000); Rudy Giuliani at NRA conference (8.000); Rudy: I usually hear the Democrats blaming the US for 9/11 (7.500); Giuliani on Gun Control (7.000)
TOTAL = 844.000 views total / 42.200 views per video average
Conclusion is that Ron Paul, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are on top of the others. Notably though, Ron Paul’s real number is much higher. This because he has by far more grass-roots support than any other candidate, and that shows in the thousands of enthusiasts’ videos on YouTube more he has over other candidates and which, because of their non-top-20 ranking, do not feature in the presented overview.
The Ron Paul revolution is here! Brace yourself, we are in for a rollercoaster ride on a gigantic snowball approaching the White House.
The author can be reached both on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=maranelloboy as well as on maranelloboy (at) gmail.com for comments
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