Internet Likeability Favors Huckabee and Edwards over Giuliani and Clinton

Wonkosphere.com reports that Mike Huckabee and John Edwards were the most likable presidential candidates amongst their constituents in the month of November, followed closely by Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Barack Obama, and Chris Dodd. Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton were the two leading candidates who had the most negative buzz from conservative and liberal bloggers, respectively.

Chandler, AZ (Issues Wire / PRWEB) December 12, 2007 -- Wonkosphere.com reports Mike Huckabee and John Edwards are well-positioned to grab undecided and cross-over voters via their high likability. "In September of 2004, Bush beat Kerry when it came to the question: Who would you rather have a beer with? In 2008, the likeability factor is probably even more important, because candidates' policy positions within each party are relatively undifferentiated and the race is going to be close," said Kevin Dooley of Wonkosphere. "According to our analysis of political blogs, Mike Huckabee and John Edwards were the most likable to conservative and liberal bloggers, respectively, in the month of November."

The predictions come from Wonkosphere.com, a new web service that uses patented technology to track and analyze over 1200 political blogs. Wonkosphere's technology measures the tone, or sentiment, of buzz about each candidate, and a likability index is constructed that ranges from 0 (most negative) to 100 (most positive). Amongst conservative bloggers, Huckabee scored a 96, closely followed by Fred Thompson (91) and Mitt Romney (91). Conservative bloggers were not nearly as positive on John McCain (75) or Rudy Giuliani (68), and were even cooler on Ron Paul (54), Tom Tancredo (44), and Duncan Hunter (42).

Amongst the leading Democratic candidates, John Edwards scored highest in likeability amongst liberal bloggers (96), followed closely by Barack Obama (88) and Chris Dodd (88). Following Obama were Bill Richardson (73), Hillary Clinton (58), Dennis Kucinich (31), Joe Biden (22), and Mike Gravel (8).

"There were also some interesting results concerning the cross-over buzz," said Wonkosphere's Steve Corman. "Huckabee was the most-liked Republican to liberal bloggers (82), while they really have it in for Giuliani (14). Conversely, John Edwards was the most liked Democrat to conservative bloggers, with likeability almost twice as high as all of the other Democrats."

Technology makes measuring likability easy
The likability results come from Wonkosphere.com, a new web site which tracks and analyzes over 1200 political blogs each day. Patented technology from Arizona State University (ASU) is used to measure each candidate's buzz share, as well as whether bloggers are ranting or raving about the candidate. Wonkosphere is operated by Crawdad Technologies, a new venture started by Corman and Dooley, who are also professors at ASU. "We knew that the 2008 political campaign would be influenced in unpredictable ways by the Internet," said Dooley. "We created Wonkosphere.com as a way to give millions of political blog readers a way to stay on top of what was happening across the whole political blogosphere."

"Technology allows us to keep track of hundreds of times more blogs than any individual has time to read," added Corman, "and it also allows the analysis to be completely unbiased, so that we can report what's going on in a truly non-partisan fashion."

About Wonkosphere
Wonkosphere is designed for bloggers, media, political activists, and political junkies who need to stay on top of the 2008 Presidential race but can't spend all day searching for the hottest and most relevant material. Wonkosphere has been highlighted by such outlets as USA Today, US News & World Report, Information Week, WIRED Online, MyDD, Andrew Sullivan, Lew Rockwell, Hugh Hewitt, and Reformed Chicks Blabbing. Wonkosphere provides an analysis of the political buzz that is timely and unbiased, made possible by tracking and analyzing over 1200 blogs and web sites per day with its patented text analysis technology. This technology measures each candidate's buzz share and tone, and highlights the most representative and linked posts. Wonkosphere is a wholly-owned service of Crawdad Technologies, LLC. www.Wonkosphere.com

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