Now Iowa is driving the dialogue
by WonkoKevin
Barack Obama’s buzz share amongst liberal bloggers has recovered to its pre-debate level of 30%. Obama’s recovery from the debate loss was largely due to a quite timely new Iowa ABC/WaPo poll showing Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton, 30% to 26%, representing the first time in months that Obama was ahead of Clinton in Iowa. The affairs over the last few weeks highlight the yet-emerging dynamics of Politics 2.0.
Up until this point, poll numbers in Iowa lagged changes in attention from MSM and Wonkosphere. Yesterday’s Iowa poll results, and the subsequent following of attention from MSM and bloggers suggests that Iowa sentiment is beginning to drive the equation. The next poll from New Hampshire or South Carolina may have a similar impact. Very exciting times.
So what can we expect from here on out?
- Poll numbers from these three states will be attention grabbers, and create news cycles of their own.
- Newspapers in Iowa, especially the Des Moines Register, will play an important role in shining light towards some candidates and away from other.
- Bloggers in these key states will be significantly influencing their local readers, and more bloggers and media will be coming into these states, giving us a better sense of what’s happenening at the ground level.
- Don’t be surprised if we see one or two “YouTube” moments in the next month.
- A certain fraction of supporters of “secondary” candidates will break to others–this is a major source of volatility. Here at Wonkoblog we’ll be paying attention to the “candidate only” bloggers for these candidates, seeing if we can sense any such shifts.
