December 21, 2006
On The Download: College Conservatives By The Facebook
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If Facebook was originally intended for college students, and universities typically lean left-of-center, one might surmise that it's lonely for college conservatives on the social networking site.
But a state-by-state analysis of College Democrats and Republicans on Facebook proved otherwise. There were almost an equal number of organized College Dems and Republicans groups. And of the 66 College groups listed for all 50 states and D.C. (Out of 102, 36 states didn't have a CR or CD), College Republican groups had 70 more people on average than College Democrats.
That difference was in no small part because of the Missouri College Republicans group, which is the largest of its kind in the U.S. with almost 3,000 members. New York College Democrats is the second largest group with 1,100 members.
MO CR's had an active recruitment effort for 2006 on Facebook under outgoing chair Justin Smith. Smith said he increased his Facebook group's membership by personally identifying 8,000 College Republicans in the state since last August.
"The trend I saw was that there were many Republicans and conservatives on college campuses, you just have to go find them," he said.
To find potential members, the Missouri College Republicans team meticulously searched for conservative rhetoric on students' profiles, for example searching by political affiliation and looking for quotes by famous Republicans.
Though only about 1/3 of these students joined the statewide facebook group, the effort yielded a large list of conservative-leaning students by college. Smith's group ended up giving out that list to almost half the universities in the state for on campus recruitment this past fall [SHIRA TOEPLITZ].
Before you check out the Republican guide to facebook, a few bytes:
*Human Events reports Frist's former internet director for VOLPAC Stephen Smith will lead Mitt Romney's online communications team.
*Kingston communications director David All is leaving the Georgia Congressman's office to start his own online strategy firm, David All Group.
*Jerome Armstrong answers questions on Personal Democracy Forum about his time with Warner's Forward Together PAC.
*Family Research Council announced its annual "Blogs4Life" conference in January.
*Lefty ProgressNow has an online video on their year in Colorado politics.
White House 2008 Republicans Guide to Facebook
Sam Brownback's unofficial but notable group: Brownback for President/StudentsforBrownback.org (894 members).
Newt Gingrich's self-described "The Official Newt Gingrich Facebook Group" (115 members), with Gingrich himself listed as an administrator. Gingrich also has his own profile. Unofficial but notable group: "Newt Gingrich for President in 2008" (391 members).
Rudy Giuliani's unofficial but notable groups: "Rudy Giuliani for President in 2008" (998 members), "RUDY GIULIANI '08" (668 members), "Giuliani for President '08!" (660 members) and "Rudy Giuliani for President" (585 members).
Chuck Hagel's unofficial but notable "Chuck Hagel for President 2008" (84 members).
Mike Huckabee's unofficial but notable "Mike Huckabee in 08" (364 members).
John McCain's unofficial but notable groups: "John McCain in 2008!" (1322 members) and "Students for McCain" (1293 members).
George Pataki's unofficial but notable "George Pataki for President 2008" (51 members).
Mitt Romney's unofficial but notable: "Romney 2008" (2,298 members), "College Students For Mitt Romney" (130 members), Mitt Romney for President (257 members),
Tom Tancredo's official Facebook "Election 2006" Profile. Unofficial but notable: "Students for Tancredo" (226 members).
with [TINA SALVATO].
Posted at 03:46 PM
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