Was Huckabee’s ‘Hucka-boom’ a month too soon?
Written by Matt Pace (contact - e-mail) -- January 2nd, 2008 |
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In an amazingly short period of time Mike Huckabee has vaulted into contention for Iowa’s GOP delegates and with them a springboard into the follow-on contests in other states. After Fred Thompson failed this past fall to capitalize on the one-time excitement among conservatives for his would-be campaign, Huckabee’s populist message, evangelical appeal, and glowing early press coverage catapulted him to the ranks of the top tier candidates. Of course, with the increased attention has come significantly more media and rival (read: Mitt Romney) scrutiny of his past statements and record as Governor of Arkansas.
From an online perspective at a national level, interest in Mike Huckabee, as judged by Compete’s Attention metric (time spent on his campaign website as a share of all time spent online in the U.S.) reached its zenith on December 3rd, exactly one month ahead of tomorrow’s Iowa caucuses. Since then, online attention in the former Baptist minister has dropped significantly, reaching its lowest point in December on Christmas Day (of all days). While Huckabee has rebounded somewhat over the past week and continues to gain more attention than his GOP rivals (with the exception of Ron Paul), it’s worth asking what might have been.
Had the Huckaboom peaked closer to today, Huckabee might have come out of practically nowhere to stun Romney in Iowa. Now after leading Iowa polls for nearly a month, Huckabee is expected to win, and with relatively little organization outside of the Hawkeye State, anything other than victory in Iowa could mortally wound his candidacy. In this historic race for the White House, as in life, timing certainly is everything.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 pm
How does his popularity compare with Ron Paul - whose supporters appear to be marketing all over the Web
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:13 am
He may be gaining in the polls, but the obesity buck may not stop with Huck!
http://www.voterswrite.org/2007/12/obesity-buck-ma.html
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 am
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January 3rd, 2008 at 4:30 am
The problem with Iowa voters is that they’re obsessed with voting for the most electable candidate in the general elections - Which is not Huckabee. As for online support, I think the extra attention he’s getting te last few days is because o the wall to wall coverage of his ‘withdrawn’ ad against Romney.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:03 am
@Silicon Valley-
As I mentioned in the post, Ron Paul, continues to outdraw even Huckabee. You can check out the stats for yourself here:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mikehuckabee.com+ronpaul2008.com/?metric=uv
Click on “Engagement”, then selection “Attention - Daily”.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:22 am
Come on, everybody bottoms out on Christmas day… Except for websites about Reindeer and other seasonal things.
Yes, his timing wasn’t ideal. You win an election based on what people think on Election Day — not on what people think two weeks earlier or three days later. I’ve been involved in many vicious local and state elections where last-minute moves made a decisive difference.
Although I’m a bit left-leaning, I had a positive impression of Huckabee a year ago — based on his record, he was a moderate Republican who was effective at working across the aisle. Like Al Gore, he’s shown some leadership an issue that politicians have been sweeping under the rug (obesity.)
Once he got some media attention, he started foaming at the mouth like a right-wing lunatic, just like all of the other republican candidates… And like all the others, America has turned its back on him.
The war, health care, global warming, product safety, and the failure to secure our homeland in New Orleans all point to a political shift to the left… America doesn’t need this BS anymore.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:19 pm
I didnt even know who this guy was before the elections. How can he expect to lead a nation where no one knows him?
January 4th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Apparently one can’t judge the potential success of a candidate by the traffic to his website - Huckabee had a decisive victory on the Republican side! Perhaps his target audience isn’t the same audience that visits his website. I often check out websites of politicians that I have no intention of voting for.
That being said, I think the Iowa caucuses are just the beginning of what will be a very interesting race. My eye’s on the Democratic ticket (and, truth be told, always has been), and I can hardly wait until the general elections!
January 4th, 2008 at 10:55 am
@Casey-
While I would agree that not all visitors to a candidate’s official website intend to cast their vote with their click, site traffic analysis can indeed help assess a candidate’s potential success. The point of this post was to simply shed light on a perceived let up in Huckabee’s momentum. The events of the past week that included his highly reported decision not run the ad attacking Romney (and then showing it to the press anyway) led to a jump in Huckabee’s attention. Also, here is the monthly site traffic for Huckabee, McCain and Romney through December.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mikehuckabee.com+johnmccain.com+mittromney.com/?metric=uv
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