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Home > Window on Washington > Archives > 2008 > June > 26 > Entry
Obama still has big social networking edge over McCain
If the election came down to social networks like Facebook and MySpace, John McCain would already be back on the Senate floor doing his normal job.
The 71-year-old McCain has never been too keen on the Internet Web 2.0 phenomenon. He told Yahoo! News that he was “an illiterate” with computers who relies on his wife for computer assistance. And it shows.
Barack Obama has more than 1 million supporters on Facebook, while McCain has just more than 150,000 supporters. Hazelnut spread Nutella, the cartoon Tom and Jerry, and ventriloquist/comedian Jeff Dunham have more supporters than McCain.
Even Obama’s wife, Michelle, has a Facebook page and a rapidly growing support base - in just three days she went from about 37,000 supporters to almost 50,000 supporters this week. Cindy McCain, the supposed tech guru of the McCain couple, doesn’t have a page.
Does this flood of youth support mean much for Obama though?
According to data from Rock the Vote, more than 2.1 million more voters ages 18-29 turned out for this year’s Democratic primaries compared to the 2004 primaries.
Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), said young voters will definitely turn out in much higher numbers for the general election, but he is not convinced that Obama will have as wide a margin as he does now.
The Democratic primaries were more competitive and interesting for younger voters, and McCain has time to make up lost ground on the Internet. He might have to learn a few more things about the Web beforehand, though.
Either way, the young college voter demographic is not where McCain has his sights. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only an estimated 6.1 percent of the population was enrolled in college in 2006.
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