Social networking sites propelling Obama more than McCain

WASHINGTON — When Melanie Aranda became the Texas coordinator for the Students for Barack Obama presidential campaign last year, one of the first places she went to drum up support was Facebook.com.

"I knew it was going to be the best way possible to get young students organized because everyone is on Facebook or MySpace," said Aranda, a December 2007 graduate of Texas State University.

She started the Facebook group "Texas Students for Barack Obama," which now boasts more than 600 members. Though she originally had mixed responses to the group, she said the ability to create events and send messages over the social network to remind people about Obama fund-raising events or speeches helped to mobilize and organize young voters.

"It was easier for us to get the word out so that we were a visible part of his campaign stops," she said.

According to Rock the Vote, a non-profit youth voter advocacy group, more than five times as many Texans ages 18-29 voted in the 2008 Democratic primaries than the 2004 primaries, with a solid majority voting for Obama.

That enthusiasm for Obama on social networks and the Internet has carried on to the general election. Obama now has more than 1 million supporters on Facebook, while Republican nominee John McCain has slightly more than 150,000 supporters, which is still fewer than former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

That disparity on social networks is just a part of the contrast in emphasis by the two campaigns on Internet organization and fund-raising.

Ryan Vartoogian, president of Spartan Internet Consulting, which started an index in July 2007 on how well the presidential candidates are using the Internet, said Obama has consistently been able to fund-raise, organize and network online more than any other candidate.

According to the index, Obama's online presence has been higher than McCain's by at least 15 percent since July 2007, and recently, Obama has dramatically widened that gap.

Vartoogian said Obama's success with social networks has largely been because of his campaign's ability to bridge the gap between online and offline support by getting people to contribute money and time to the campaign.

"Its kind of like a support group in a way that if you have others who you can share the same like-minded view within that kind of environment, its really going to motivate you to continue on behalf of that particular mission or candidate," Vartoogian said.

Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), believes the Internet is not the only reason for this youth fervor.

"Young people are different in some respects," Levine said. "They are, for example, doing a lot more community service and volunteering than they were in the past, and I think that's relevant because they're interested and concerned — and that's probably not driven by the Internet."

He said, though, that social networks have helped to not only organize young voters, but also given them more influence on the campaign than they have had in past elections.

"If you're not officially working for a campaign, you can have a lot of impact on the election, because you can make your own YouTube video and it happens to go viral or you can build a Facebook site," he said.

Aranda also said social networks give students a validation of their campaign work.

"It gives people an actual stamp that they can say, 'Oh, I did this,' and they can at least go back and see what they've done with photos put on the group's page," she said.

Though Aranda is no longer in college or active with the Obama campaign, she said the voting base that college students all across the country built on social networks is still growing stronger, and younger voters will influence the election much more than previous elections.

"We're going to be a force to reckon with in November," she said.

Scott Girard's e-mail address is sgirard(at)coxnews.com