Saturday, January 17, 2009

Steelman leads in Facebook

The early numbers on Facebook have Sarah Steelman ahead in her race for Missouri's Senate seat.

1. Sarah Steelman 227 members

2. Jim Talent 69 members

3. Roy Blunt 35 members

According to ky3 political notebook, a staffer from Steelman's run for governor created the site. ky 3 also claims her facebook fans are largely made up of young people.

In reality, these facebook numbers mean nothing; except what they are. You'd rather have 227 friends than 35, but again, it's facebook. Only slightly more relevant than myspace.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's a question: will Sarah Steelman embrace the personal of "Sarah Palin with an economics degree." She'll eventually be asked the question, and I wonder if she'll say "nah, that's nonsense" or say "hell yeah, I'm a big fan of Sarah Palin."

My guess is the latter given that it'll play well in the GOP primary. She probably has never met or talked to the 'Cuda but in a Senate election during an off-election year in a state that went for McCain, the base is all you need to win. I suspect we'll hold this one with any of our candidates. Carnahan will need a lot of black support and without Obama on the ticket, that'll be tough. I can see Steelman holding her own in rural areas and winning the race if she is the nominee.

Steelman and Peter King should go look to the Sarah Palin 2006 gubernatorial playbook. Steelman for an idea as to how to wage an inter-party campaign and King to run an anti-nepotism battle. Palin was the last one to really do both and ironically, so many GOP leaders could take lessons from her as crazy as that sounds given her reputation outside of the Republican party.

gop 12 said...

Yeah, their political careers are uncannily similar, vice-president out of nowhere thing aside. But if Steelman makes it, it will be despite the party. Which proves her skill all the more. SP did the same thing, obviously, and whether Steelman's another Palin will depend on whether she can duplicate the latters success.

I recently read (can't remember where) that Carnahan holds her own in white districts in MO, and that, combined with the huge urban numbers, would make her tough to beat.

But I need to get verification on that, because ppp has the race very close:

ROBIN CARNAHAN 45%, ROY BLUNT 44%
ROBIN CARNAHAN 47%, JIM TALENT 43%
ROBIN CARNAHAN 47%, SARAH STEELMAN 36%

Anonymous said...

Oh, I don't doubt that Carnahan is as tough an opponent as we'll have. However, Steeleman has the best potential future politician on a national level. Blunt and Talent aren't those types of figures though they are the safest choices right now against Carnahan. Emphasis on right now.

This one will be a barnburner. Carnahan would probably rather face Steeleman than anyone else. The race is almost eerily similar in terms of a potential storyline with Palin in 2006; it's pretty scary how you could draw analogies.

Blunt is the Frank Murkowski of the race, Knowles is the Carnahan, Steeleman is Palin. Hell, they both have lost high profile races before by slim margins in primaries (Palin in 2002 for Lt. Gov. and Steeleman for governor). I'm digging this analogy. Palin could use some of Steelman's economics knowledge and Steelman could use some of Palin's never-say-die campaigning.

Anonymous said...

Also, I think the Palin narrative will allow her to pull off the upset. If she doesn't overdo it, the grassroots in Missouri will eat it up. She'll have to eat into Blunt's support in rural Missouri but what do you think about Talent? Does he take away Blunt's establishment in rich Republican support in the suburbs support while Steelman walks away with the grassroots and the rural vote?

Missouri is interesting because it is the one swing state where McCain held his own in the suburbs when compared to Bush in 2004 according to exit polls.

Anonymous said...

Hey Anonymous, that's very interesting stuff. If it were Talent against Blunt, who would get the establishment support. I don't know much about this race, but I always thought both of them were in with the state party. So whom would the state party give it to? Or maybe they'd back out and let the two fight it out.

Also why do you think Carnahan wants to face Steelman more than the other two? If Steelman wins the primary the republican party would put all their support behind her.
-Kevin

Kevin said...

Ooops! It looks like we're the same person since I did anonymous. But those were my questions, heh.