Hillary Clinton, Democrats lead Republicans in Web race to the White House

Digital Markets Blog presidential campaign 2008 special series on what I am calling “User Generated Politics”

Hillary Clinton began her online presidential “User Generated Politics” presidential campaign 2008 “conversation” early and it is paying off. “Hillary for President” is leading in national opinion polls and on the Web.

“If the next Democratic primary for president were being held today, for which candidate would you vote,” NBC News/Wall Street Journal polled 1007 adults nationwide the first week of March 2007:

Hillary Clinton: 40%
Barack Obama: 28%
John Edwards: 15%

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YouTube Hillary Support Our Troops

Hillary proposes a new GI Bill of Rights to fulfill the promises we've made to our troops and veterans.

HillaryClinton.com tops Candidate Sites for Traffic

"HillaryClinton.com served nearly twice as many unique visitors in January as all three top Republican candidates combined. Clinton's website was the No. 1 presidential campaign site in January. BarackObama.com and JohnEdwards.com ranked second and third, with 574,000 and 464,000 unique visitors, respectively. This according to tracking service Nielsen//NetRatings." from www.rtoonline.com

I personally think it has to do with the Hillary Campaign emails they send out on a weekly basis.
Last 6 Hillary emails I received
Feb 21st Bill Launches One Week One Million
Feb 26th One Week One Million update
Feb 27th One Week One Million update
Feb 28th Hillary HillCast Energy
Mar 6th Launching Women's Campaign HillCast Equal Pay
Mar 8th No More Lost Votes

I never realized how many emails I was getting from the Hillary Campaign. If the emails were from anybody else I would have been annoyed but I always seem to enjoy the Hillary emails. They are informative and always have a call to action, to join a campaign, send in your comments or watch a video.

Other Campaign emails I have received in the same time period (Feb21 - Mar8)
Barack Obama
Feb 21st De-Escalation in Iraq
Mar 1st Update on Recent Travels (includes a video)
Mar 6th Invitation to Donate
Mar 8th Another Invitation to Donate

John Edwards
Mar 2nd Shame on you, Ann Coulter Invite to Donate
Mar 7th They Deserve Better (Walter Reed Medical Center)
Mar 8th Leave no caucus-goer behind Video & Invite to Donate

Campaign emails are a great way to drive traffic to the campaign website and I am sure have played a role in helping increase the monthly traffic stats.

YouTube HillCast: Equal Pay

Hillary discusses her fight in Congress for equal pay and other priorities for American women.

Hillary on Energy and the Growing Debt

Hillcast on Energy

Senator Clinton Urges Action on Growing Foreign Debt

Hillary Clinton Addresses Adventists

Top YouTube Videos For The Top Presidential Candidates

Top Hillary Video by views under the Tag "Hillary Clinton"
Hillary Clinton Sings National Anthem

Views: 1,060,372
Comments: 3426
Favorited: 667 times

Top Obama Video by views under the Tag "Barack Obama"
"The 1/2 Hour News Hour" segment on Obama

Views: 474,876
Comments: 3108
Favorited: 330 times

Top McCain Video by views under the Tag "John McCain"
John McCain sleeping on the Job

Views: 225,272
Comments: 421
Favorited: 120 times

Top Giuliani Video by views under the Tag "Rudy Giuliani"
Rudy Giuliani in Drag Smooching Donald Trump

Views: 130,768
Comments: 154
Favorited: 190 times

Top Edwards Video by views under the Tag "John Edwards"
Tomorrow Begins Today. Preview to his Presidential Announcement

Views: 113,117
Comments: 104
Favorited: 119 times

Top Romney Video by views under the Tag "Mitt Romney"
Debate Romney vs Kennedy. Video shows his Flip Flopping on Abortion, Gay Rights, Ronald Reagon, Affirmative Action

Views: 71,408
Comments: 1361
Favorited: 134 times

Digg Article

"One Week One Million" Ends Tomorrow

Looks like they are going to reach their goal of a Million. I really thought with momentum they had starting off they might 2 million, but looks like I was wrong.
Congrats Team Hillary

Hillary Clinton: YouTube Videos from the last 24 hours

Hillary Clinton on Women's Google Forum

In New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, Hillary continues the conversation with voters. See what they think.

Edwards happy to not be in the news

A week ago the Edwards blog was frustrated and begging for some news coverage,(Link) but after the Hillary Obama Drama over the comments Geffen said, the Edwards Campaign is now thankful they aren't in the news.

from Edwards Blog
" John Edwards isn't receiving as much press as his opponents, but I'll bet Hillary and Obama wish their apparent feud was not in the media, everyday. The Democrats do not need divisiveness in our party. I hope we are all on the same team, here. The showing of their fangs, as we are watching the developments in the other Democratic candidates' political camps, is not helping us, but instead, their flawed, strategy is giving the Republicans more meat for their tables.
All Democrats running for any office should remember: We must defeat Republican candidates, if we are to regain a true democracy in America. If that means we have to bite the bullet and not criticize too vehemently, other Democratic candidates, then so be it. From what I have seen, Mr. Edwards is the most positive, eloquent candidate, finding it unnecessary to bash his opponents, as a means to winning the Presidency."

Hillary posts her first blog

from HillaryClinton.com
It's now just over a month that I have been in to win.

It's been exciting and challenging and fun all at the same time. The people I have met have been terrific.

And we decided day one that this campaign would live as much on the web as in the living rooms - and the opening of the blog is just another in the many web firsts in this campaign, following the unprecedented announcement and three straight nights of live video chats.

I believe that the web is not only creating new forms of political dialogue but offering a new wave of opportunity for all Americans - and one of my highest priorities will be to make us number one again in the world in broadband. If we are not at the forefront of the web as a nation, we simply will not be able to keep up our role as the world's leading innovator. Net Neutrality is something that I am also fighting for now in the Senate so that the web remains open and democratic.

I appreciate the hundreds of thousands of you who are participating on this site in one form or another. This is truly the dialogue decade, and through the miracle of technology I can talk WITH you, not just at you. I will be holding more web chats soon, and I have started a "HillCast," a regular web broadcast that will be about some of the most important issues I am tackling. The first one was on my plan to end the war in Iraq and the next one will be on the energy crisis we are facing. I believe campaigns are about ideas - and how together we turn those ideas into action.

I have been reading through the comments you all have been making - many of them encouraging, some critical and some with great suggestions - all of them are appreciated. We have gotten off to an exceptional start, and in the coming months I look forward to talking with you more about my specific plans to restore what I call the promise of America, and I will look forward to your comments. Hopefully I will also see you out there on the campaign trail.

Looks Like Vilsack Is Out

I don't understand why he is dropping out so soon. I wonder where is supporters will go. Will this be a victory for Edwards, Obama or Clinton.

Clinton "One Week One Million" Update 2.23.07

I am guessing 2 million in one week

Supporters Demand That Candidates Visit Their Hometowns

Eventful is a new website for finding events and demanding events. "Eventful's unique Demand service enables users to create grass-roots campaigns to "demand" events and performances in their city."(from Eventful.com)
Supporters demanding that a Candidate visit their hometown can even encourage others by posting a "demand sticker" on their myspace profile or blog

Currently Hillary Clinton leads the pack of Politicians with 400 demands in 111 places.
Cities with the most demands for Hillary to visit
Los Angeles metro area
San Diego metro area
Seattle metro area
Phoenix metro area

Barack Obama 12 people in 7 places
John Edwards 5 people in 2 places
Dennis Kucinich 1 person in 1 place
Tom Vilsack 2 people in 1 place
Rudy Giuliani 1 person in 1 place
Mitt Romney 2 people in 2 places

YouTube Weekend Roundup

Mitt Romney

The Romney Campaign uploaded this weeks tv appearance ("This Week" on YouTube) discussing everything from his Faith to Iraq. Great to see the campaign utilizing YouTube but the videos have less then 10 views each. Now they just need to figure out a way to distribute the videos to their supporters(newsletter, myspace, facebook etc).

Romney Video Link






Hillary Clinton

I was very pleased to see Hillary's Campaign upload her "Roadmap Out Of Iraq" both to the official site and YouTube almost simoultaneously.

Todays YouTube Videos

JoeBidendotcom
Iraq's Future and America's Interests


GovMittRomney
Gov. Romney on Iran


HillaryClintondotcom
Hillary in New Hampshire

Candidate Sites and how they rank on the Internet

Ranked via Alexa.com

Traffic Rank for BarackObama.com 22,153
Traffic Rank for HillaryClinton.com 24,217
Traffic Rank for JohnEdwards.com 53,758
Traffic Rank for ExploreMccain.com 198,447
Traffic Rank for MittRomney.com 251,405
Traffic Rank for JoinRudy2008.com 257,732


How the Republicans Compare to each other



How the Democrats Compare to each other





To give you some context, here are a couple of top sites on the internet.
Traffic Rank for Yahoo 1
Traffic Rank for CNN 46

Web lets political become personal in Election 2.0

“While I can’t visit everyone’s living room,” says Hillary Clinton as she sits in her own, “I can try, and — with a little help from modern technology — I will be holding live online video chats.”

Thus began her attempt to spark an internet “conversation” with the American people that will feature no fewer than five such online chats in the coming days.

Mrs Clinton’s decision to launch her campaign for the presidency on the internet bypassed the mainstream media, which despite being denied any direct access to her over the weekend, nonetheless gave her wall-to-wall coverage.

Barack Obama, one of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, also chose to outline his presidential ambitions last week with a similar — if slightly stiff — video clip on his website. Their use of such technology allows the candidates to demonstrate an affinity with modernity while also allowing them to control their message in a way that a press conference or TV interview does not.

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Candidates seize Facebook to reach Internet generation

As the 2008 Presidential campaign is underway, major political players have chosen Facebook as a campaign battleground.

Presidential candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barak Obama and Mitt Romney, are seizing new political opportunities for social networking in Facebook's Internet community to "befriend" younger voters.

By simply searching some of these names on the Web site, members can "poke" Rudy Giuliani, read personal announcements from Barack Obama's "notes" or read up on Mitt Romney's favorite inspirational quotes.

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Myspace Roundup 2.15.2006

Democrats
John Edwards seems to be shrinking losing 8 friends on Myspace from Wed (11,350) to Thur (11,342)
Hillary and Obama still the biggest gainers.

Republicans
Biggest gainer was definetly Rudy Giuliani jumping over John McCain into second place with a gain of 149 friends.