The fact that Barack Obama’s presence on social networking websites dwarfs that of every other candidate has started to attract some MSM attention. Seth Gitell wrote it up for the NY Sun (he quotes my NECN appearance from last week). And the Nation has an article speculating on whether all the Facebook-type action can translate into the kind of on-the-ground activity that makes for winning campaigns. The first to the punch, as usual, was Raw Story, with this article in late January about the remarkable growth of one pro-Obama Facebook site that now boasts over 250,000 members.
Some are skeptical as to whether all this online activity really matters. Won’t it be interesting to find out?
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A strong online presence along with an equally strong real word presence is a plus. However there must be a balance between the two. Also it is very easy to sign up online to support a candidate. How well does this transfer into really getting out and doing something is another question.
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The Patrick campaign was built using the Internet, but he did not win because of this. In our region of the state very few people used their computers to learn about Deval. It was word of mouth, visibility and phone banking. We produced one of the highest voter turnouts in the state for Deval.
The significant of having a huge Facebook group is not merely that you have a prominent presence on Facebook – it’s that each of those people who joined the group is an actual person. The size of the group is an indicator of support among the people who make up Facebook’s userbase.
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When we organized for Howard Dean in little local groups all over the country in 2003, that showed up on the Internet, but the Internet presence wasn’t our movement’s strength in and of itself. Our Internet presence was an indicator of our offline existence as well – we had more active organizers and grassroots volunteers than any campaign, and we used that strength to turn an unknown candidate with no change at all into a frontrunner and one of the real contenders in the race.
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If Obama is dwarfing other candidates on social networking sites, it indicates that there are a lot of people out there who support him. That’s a very vague claim (and we can’t go much further than that yet), but if it has real significance, that’s is where much of that significance lies.
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Note: I’m on Facebook. I have not joined any Obama groups. I have seen a lot of my friends join them, recently – and I’ve also seen a lot joining Edwards groups over the past few months.