Squidblog

I was up late last night doing some research on a candidate and got to thinking: I wonder whether Squidoo lensmasters, as a body, are leaning toward one candidate or another. Can I suss out a political trend here?

The data isn’t very conclusive (I didn’t think it would be), though it’s an interesting journey.

Headcount: I started with a simple look at numbers of lenses. There are more lenses about Clinton and Obama than any other candidates. Next up is Ron Paul, then John Edwards, trailed by Romney and Huckabee. McCain isn’t widely represented on the site, which I count as a disappointment. Then there’s Giuliani who hardly has any lenses at all. It’s worth mentioning, too, that Fred Thompson has a decent number of lenses, but a few are about his movies, so I’m discounting those.

Rank: Next I looked at LensRank… if that decided the election then Huckabee would win faster than he could say Merry Christmas in December–there’s a really comprehensive, widely favorited lens on him ranked #9 out of the entire site of nearly 400,000 lenses.

Here’s a list of the top-ranked lenses right now on each the frontrunner candidates. (Note 1: the rankings change daily. Note 2: These aren’t necessarily “editorially” the best — they’re just top of our rankings which factor in things like traffic and rating and comments and clickouts and freshness and more).

Clinton: http://www.squidoo.com/who-is-hillary-clinton
Colbert: http://www.squidoo.com/StephenColbertforPresident — Wait how did that get in there?
Edwards: http://www.squidoo.com/presidentjohnedwards
Giuliani: http://www.squidoo.com/RudyWGiuliani
Huckabee: http://www.squidoo.com/2008-republican-presidential-candidate
McCain: http://www.squidoo.com/McCainforpresident
Obama: http://www.squidoo.com/barack-obama
Paul: http://www.squidoo.com/ron-paul-window-decal (Apparently buying a window decal is the best way to support Ron Paul. Maybe that’s how he managed to raise so much money?)
Romney: http://www.squidoo.com/mittmentum
Thompson: http://www.squidoo.com/FredThompsonMovies
Whoops, not that one, this one: http://www.squidoo.com/Fred-Thompson-President

Editorial: Finally, deciding to throw aside algorithms in favor of an editorial and anecdotal approach, I looked at things like depth and passion and degree of personal opinion in the content, figuring that could tell me more about how lensmasters are leaning. If lots of people are really fired up about Clinton, I thought, versus someone just phoning it in on a “what wikipedia says” lens about Giuliani, that might tell me something. No surprise, Obama fans are putting themselves out there more than others right now. Clinton lenses are probably the most divided between love and hate lenses. Romney’s the next most contested. Finally, content on the Edwards, McCain and Giuliani lenses are pretty darn thin by comparison to the rest. Same goes for the Ron Paul lenses, which is a shame for us given his whole “candidate 2.0″ background of courting social networks online.

Conclusion? Well, I can no more declare the Squidoo community decidedly liberal or conservative or libertarian, elephant or donkey or orangutan, than I can say that The Two Towers is a better movie than Star Wars. It’s obvious there’s no single candidate reigning on Squidoo… and that this is going to be a really, really close race.

Apart from political leanings, what IS clear to me is this. Candidate lenses that post personal opinions, tell stories, ask questions of their readers and run polls and Duels consistently outperform the more antiseptic bio lenses. If you’re looking for the most complete, factual dossier on a candidate, stop by CNN or wikipedia or the candidate’s own site (if you dare). If you’re looking for always-on updates and one-way pundit style writing, head over to the Huffington Post or similar. But if you’re looking to find out what real people think about an issue or candidate, and maybe even get into a conversation with them (beyond the “Lolz, I’d never vote for Billary” style of commentary you get on Facebook and Myspace) well then, Squidoo’s open waters should suit you best, IMHO.

In the true spirit of an election: go for a swim and decide for yourself. Better yet, set up your own “Why I Support So and So” signpost page. Hey, it’s better than sticking a poster on your front lawn!