Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Checking in on the Sander's Campaign

It's been a very interesting two weeks for the Democrat's running in the 2016 Presidential Election.  Joe Biden has officially announced he will not be running for president, and both Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee have announced the end of their respective campaigns leaving a field of just three candidates: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley.  

There have also been two major events for the candidates in the past two weeks, the first Democrat Debate hosted by CNN, and the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Des Moines Iowa which is a major fundraising event for the Democrat party in Iowa where all three candidates gave speeches.  

Going back to Google trends we can see the impact that the Democrat's first debate had on both Sanders and Clinton


(I don't know why google trends just drops off at the end there because interest from the media and searches is absolutely still happening)

 From this trend, you can see that the debate had an enormous impact that the first debate had on interest in Sanders amongst searches and news outlets.  Many polls after the debate argued that Hillary won the debate, but that Sanders had a strong enough showing that he is still her largest challenger by a large margin. 

 Going back to Social Mention paints an interesting picture, for this search I used Sander's campaign slogan, FeeltheBern
42%
strength
6:1
sentiment
23%
passion
31%
reach
20 seconds avg. per mention
last mention 52 seconds ago
76 unique authors
57 retweets


The more I played around with the searches, and results, the more I became interested in how it categorizes things as positive and negative, and the accuracy of the results. So I dove into what it categorized as a negative mention, of which there were a grand total of 4 showing from the past month. The first was a tweet and it looked like this: 
The next three mentions all came from Reddit.  Specifically they all came from r/SandersForPresident, which is as you could probably guess, is a forum about electing Sanders for President.  The first of the three things deemed negative, which is linked here is a a collection of Sanders related activist groups, information about how to vote in the primary, and Sanders' stance on the issues.  Also not really that Negative. The third is an interesting perspective on a protest a couple of days ago that happened at a Sanders march in NYC where some protesters from the far far left protested that Sanders wasn't liberal enough.  Finally, the last post from reddit asks if there's a forum to have daily discussions on the issues brought up by the Sander's campaign and platform such as socialism and mass incarceration and income inequality.  not positive, but also not negative.  Now looking at the positive mentions for his campaign slogan.

Icerocket's results for #FeeltheBern also paint an interesting picture, with several conservative blog posts at the top of the results, that by their very nature of being conservative are negative.  The tweets shown however, paint a very positive picture for Sanders, much like the positive tweets found on socialmention.  

So, what does this all mean for the campaign? Let's break down the pro's con's and suggestions for the future.

Pros:
  • The Sanders' campaign has ignited a lot of passion amongst young voters
  • Sanders is currently the only real challenger to front runner Hillary Clinton
  • Strong record on equality, anti-war, anti-Wall Street
  • Pro Sanders' individuals are extremely passionate about Sanders' campaign
  • Among the groundswell Sanders' support is high, with a lot of passion, and a lot of positive sentimentality.  

Cons:
  • Sanders' positions on the issues may be too far left for most of America
  • Sanders' has been giving the same speeches over and over again
  • no real support or endorsement from mainstream Democrat party
  • As a Democrat he's kinda weak on gun control, faces attacks from pro-Palestinian groups
  • Only just beginning to be taken seriously by mass media
  • Considered by many to not be a viable candidate

Suggestions:

  • Make as many appearances with the media as possible
  • Don't be afraid to directly confront Clinton's stances on the issues you are strong on
  • Push for voting drives, visit college towns and push people to register to vote and get them excited to vote in the primaries and election
  • Change up your speeches
As the race stands today, Hillary Clinton is going to be the next Democrat nominee for President.  If the Sanders' campaign is going to change that, then they need to push for more positive coverage in mainstream media, and directly confront Clinton's stances on the issues, and how she's only recently changed her stances in many places that Sanders' has held firmly Democrat positions on for decades in some cases. 

Stepping back and looking at the larger picture, the biggest concern facing the Democrat party going into the general election may be that Sanders' supporters don't turn out to vote if he isn't elected.  To quote an article about the Jefferson-Jackson dinner this past weekend:

“The enthusiasm of the Sanders supporters was simply astounding. I haven’t heard that level of support in quite a few caucus cycles,” said Dennis Goldford, a Drake University professor who studies the Iowa caucuses. “I’d bet the enthusiasm of his supporters at least rivaled, if not exceeded, that of Obama in 2007.” Source

The most striking thing about the dinner was the way Sanders’ bleachers began to empty as soon as the Vermont U.S. senator’s speech ended — and before O’Malley or Clinton had spoken, said John Deeth, an Iowa City Democrat who blogs about Iowa politics. Source

So as heated as this race gets in the coming months leading up to the nominations for President, the most important thing for both the Sanders' and Clinton campaigns other than winning, is making sure that whoever loses, is able to fully transition that support over to the Democrat candidate, or face the reality of a Republican President.  
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