5 Tips on How You Can Accurately Monitor Voter Sentiment (by spying on the Left via Facebook using basic market research techniques)
One of the most fun jobs I ever had was working as a market research analyst for a fancy hotel in Cleveland when I was in my 20s; that’s because it involved spying on things the other nice hotels in the city were doing. I remember when I applied for the job I didn’t realize the spying part would be involved, because I thought it was a strictly computer research and analysis position…but during my training I was specifically told to walk around the city every day, pop into the competitor hotels, write down the groups holding conferences or events there, take a rough assessment of how busy the place was, peek into the restaurant or bar to see how many people were eating or drinking there, and see if anything these other hotels were doing was something that the executives at our hotel should know about.
When I’d get back to my desk from these little reconnaissance missions, I’d look up the contact information for the companies who hosted events with our competitors and would make sure these people got packets from our sales team so they’d consider having their next event with us instead…giving them discounts and other incentives to try to snag that business away from the other hotels. I bet today, if I was still working in the industry, we could do most of this more or less online…though I’d hate to think whoever’s doing my old job now wouldn’t have the freedom or fun to bop around Cleveland during the day observing, taking notes, and surreptitiously spying on competitors the way I used to do.
In the last year or so, I’ve really discovered that Facebook is a wonderful tool for doing something like this to the Left…but instead of visiting competing hotels and checking out what events or conference business they had that day I can pop around to various pages and get a good read on what the Left in this country is either up to or feeling.
Today I thought I’d give you a little real-time training on just how much great information YOU, too, can collect by spying on lefties’ Facebook pages and also monitoring entertainment websites to see what Democrat talking points are saturating the public in that moment. The key is to monitor entertainment sites (like EW.com, People.com, AintItCool.com, and Deadline.com) instead of political sites like Daily Kos or Democratic Underground because the latter are really not representative of anything that would be seen by the general public. This is actually true of conservative sites too, which are also only read by people really interested in politics…so while I read these for information and enjoyment myself, I know that the average person on the street has no idea what’s going on at Breitbart.com or on DrudgeReport today. They do, however, know all about whatever the entertainment sites are covering…and what I’m interested is seeing what political points hit the radar of those who really only follow pop culture (and, of course, what these people then say in comments on those articles).
None of this is an exact science, but I think it gives as much insight into the Left as my spy missions in the hotel world used to give me when I was a market research analyst back in the 90s.
Here’s 5 Tips on How I Monitor the Left’s Impact on Voters, and how YOU can do it too:
5. Find a leftist group on Facebook and then start following some of its more rabid and vocal members.
One of the main things I keep telling conservatives is that they need to delete the word “liberals” from their vocabularies and start using the word “lefties” or “Leftists” to describe these people because Democrats PREFER being called “liberals” — so why on Earth do you HELP THEM by using the terminology they’ve approved? When you call them lefties (which is what they are) they howl like vampires doused in holy water. That’s a good thing.
If you notice, few Democrats embrace the word “lefties” or “Leftists” because they know that’s bad branding for the party that alienates independent and undecided voters. The word “liberal”, however, is focus-group tested to sound “open”, “positive”, and “tolerant” to average people who have no negative association with the word. These same focus groups, however, run screaming for the door if people describe Democrats as “lefties” or “Leftists”. If you’re someone who keeps saying or writing “liberal” but you don’t like Democrats winning elections then I am sorry to tell you that you’re a damn fool. You are like the Coca-Cola bottling company running ads that purposefully ask people to drink Pepsi instead. Why you do this, I don’t know, but you should stop it today and never, ever say the word “liberal” again.
To illustrate this to you, I’ll highlight a few groups on Facebook that are great sources of intel for what the Left is up to (and you’ll notice that all of them cloak themselves in the word “liberal” to make them sound more appealing to people who’d be turned off if these groups were referred to as “Leftist” in much the same way that cockroaches sound so much cuter and more appealing when people call them “hug-a-bugs”).
* Being Liberal – https://www.facebook.com/beingliberal.org This is my first stop of the day, actually, when it’s time to see what nutty things the Left is pushing as talking points.
* Left-Leaning Liberal Ladies – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Left-Leaning-Liberal-Ladies/196588647060935 As noted above, it’s very rare to see Democrats embrace the term “Left-leaning” (but note how they mitigate this by adding the “Liberal” in there too, for good measure). This is a good place to watch how the Left attempts to gin up anger amongst women by reducing them to talking giant vaginas and claiming that Republicans are evil and want to prevent them from killing their babies in the womb.
* Equality Illinois – https://www.facebook.com/equalityillinois This one is a Chicago-specific thing in the gay community, but Equality Illinois is often used by the Left to take punches at Christians because it’s more legitimate-appearing than an entity like “Being Liberal”; often times attacks on Republicans are originated with something “legitimate” like this group…and then the nuttier operatives out there pick that germ of a story up and run with it on a “Being Liberal” page…and then it builds from there to other sites the Left employes to get information out. Sometimes you can read the tea leaves via Equality Illinois to know what outrage the Left will manufacture in a week or two.
* Defeating Mitt Romney – https://www.facebook.com/defeatmitt I bet this one will be around for Romney’s whole presidency (both expected terms), but right now it’s a good source of updates on the things lefties coordinate to malign Mitt Romney. I suggest checking it out because the desperation from these people right now is hilarious. As of this writing on 10/19/2012 at around 200pm CST, they are just starting to understand that Mitt Romney is going to win…so the content on this “Defeat Mitt” page is equal parts fear and loathing…and a bubbling nastiness as the election gets closer and they know Obama is going to lose.
That’s just four groups I keep an eye on. In addition, here in Boystown I also watch the Facebook pages of other gay organizations and bars, since a lot of them post political messages too (which are all anti-Christian and anti-conservative in nature). I monitor the different gay papers and magazines in Chicago and on the national scene.
From these groups, I look for regular commenters who seem really unhinged…people who tend to go overboard and really rant and rave with intense hatred directed against conservatives and Christians. It’s remarkable what you can learn about the Left and its plans just by keeping tabs on the things individual lefties post or repost from others on Facebook. It’s like being able to peek into their brains and see exactly what rattles them…which is helpful for me because then I know exactly what to write about that’s most effective to unhinge them.
The Left ALWAYS telegraphs successful strategy to conservatives, but Republicans are often too stupid to pick up on these “tells”. An hour a day popping around Facebook, however, clearly shows me what upsets the Left, what really rattles these people, and what things I can do the next day to unhinge them all some more.
4. Keep a little spreadsheet of the nuttiest lefties who regularly produce the best intel for you (so you can look up what they are doing in the future and see what they’ve been up to lately).
I can’t give you my list, because I don’t want to burn these sources, but I can show you some examples of people who are excellent resources into the minds of the Left. These are individuals who routinely parrot the Left’s talking points and who spend a great deal of time on Facebook…so often their reactions to events in the news are in real-time and uncensored. That’s really the key to using Facebook to gain insight into the lefties…to find ones who are plugged into Facebook constantly and who enjoy giving their opinions on all sorts of things throughout the day in rapid-fire fashion. They, thus, say and do things that those who aren’t so addicted to Facebook would think better of saying or doing.
* Bruch Reed (who claims to be an actor in New York): https://www.facebook.com/bruch.reed This guy is just completely unhinged. He very often wishes people he doesn’t like were dead, he mocks Christianity on an almost daily basis, and he is prone to a lot of swearing and infantile behavior. For whatever reason, he lives nonstop on Facebook so it’s interesting to check his page after something like a presidential debate and see what the lefties thought of that in real time. Not only do you get to see what this one lefty in New York thought, but his friends leave comments too and you can see what they’re all saying as well. I think I found this guy via Equality Illinois or something when he left a nasty comment there and I realized that he was unhinged enough to really give good scoop on the nastiness the Left employs on a regular basis. Then, through Bruch, I found lots of other lefties to monitor because I spot the most unhinged ones in comments on his posts.
* Tracy Baim: https://www.facebook.com/tracy.baim Tracy is a writer for one of the gay papers here in Chicago, and is actually a nice person. She’s professional, so she doesn’t swear like that Bruch guy does but she also lives on Facebook and posts nonstop throughout the day. She is a good resource for seeing what gay “activists” are trying to push each day in terms of the Democrats’ talking points. I’ve also identified quiet a few other good lefties to follow based on the comments people leave on Tracy’s site.
* Ann Rice: https://www.facebook.com/anneobrienrice?fref=ts It makes me sad, actually, that Anne Rice has gotten so crazy since her husband Stan died a few years ago, but she’s unhinged these days. I used to love reading her Vampire Chronicles books back when I was in college. In fact, I actually realized I was gay and came out a few days after watching Interview with the Vampire in theaters with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise (which remains, to this day, the gayest big budget Hollywood movie ever made). Rice rants and raves completely uncensored on Facebook. Think of things Barbra Streisand would say and do, but then turn the volume all the way up. Whenever Anne is upset about something or is howling, it is a good indication that we are winning in a big way.
My spreadsheet has about 50 people on it and here and there I pick a few to check in with every day right after I look at what’s happening on the lefties’ Facebook group pages. So, getting insight into these people on the individual level is enlightening. It’s one thing to know what a group like the “Being Liberal” people are up to…but it’s more interesting to see how much of that is filtering down to average guys on the ground like that Bruch in New York…or to Tracy, the writer, here in Chicago…or what a lefty celebrity like Anne Rice is going on about today.
Like I said, checking in and seeing these people raging with anger and lashing out is a good thing…because that means Democrats were defeated on something terrible they were trying to do that day or Barack Obama was just humiliated in something else again.
3. In a contemporary log, make notes of the memes and angles lefties seem to most often push on Facebook and how others respond to all this.
I actually have a little journal by my desk that I use to take notes for story ideas. As I am looking through Facebook to see what the lefties are mad about that day, I look for common themes or memes that repeat. Not only do I keep track of the things that make them the maddest, but I also see if they are forwarding the same talking points or articles to their Facebook friends. I purposefully monitor people on Facebook who are all lefties but who are not mutual friends of one another…so that I can see if something one of them does ends up on the other people’s walls eventually too.
It’s fascinating to see things spread from a show like Saturday Night Live or someone like Chris Matthews and then soon all of the lefties’ Facebook pages will be infected with that. The Left is comprised of a great deal of group think, swearing, and raging against anyone declared “an enemy” of the hive.
A lot of what I write is specifically designed to either upset these people or to blunt any attacks they’re percolating against conservatives and Christians.
What the lefties do on Facebook is probably a news cycles or two ahead of what the Ministry of Truth will churn out as Democrat propaganda in the future. It looks like the Left uses Facebook to test a lot of their talking points out…and then it’s all moved onto MSNBC and the New York Times when they see this stuff is effective. Facebook is like the Left’s new focus group test kitchen…which is marvelous because you, too, can use this as a resource to gain valuable insight into these people.
2. Challenge yourself to predict and anticipate what lefties will say and do when certain things flash through the news.
I actually have a lot of fun playing a little game with my boyfriend Justin. Whenever any big story breaks in the news, we try to anticipate what the lefties on Facebook are going to say about it. After doing this for a while, nine times out of ten we’ll be right. That’s not hard, though, because usually the Left will just swear a lot, post vulgarity, and call anyone they disagree with “extreme”, “hateful”, “evil”, “racist”, “homophobic”, or “a liar”. It gets repetitious after a while because this is really all the Left ever says about anyone who stands in their way. It’s Alinsky Rule #13, for those keeping score.
But it’s interesting to use Facebook to show that my gut instincts are usually right…and that the reaction from the Left I predicted they’d give is the one that really does end up being so popular on Facebook.
You, too, can use this valuable resource to keep dibs on the Left and see just how predictable their reactions are to most things.
1. Check the entertainment sites to see which (if any) of the Left’s daily talking points are in fact being picked up unwittingly by the general public.
This is the last part of my day…which is something I usually do right before I got to sleep, because it’s a nice segue from the nastiness of the Facebook postings to the more constrained lefty ramblings on entertainment sites. I usually do these in order of:
* www.EW.com — a good mix of people that only skews a little to the Left; I look for any article that could have a political lean to it and see what people say in comments about either Obama or Romney. The less vocal the support for Obama or the weaker attacks on Romney mean these people realize Obama is losing. I’ve noticed this trend for the last year, but from 2008-2010 it was nonstop Obama cult worship on this site. Those days are long gone.
* www.Deadline.com — these are mostly Hollywood professionals posting, and they are controlled and reality-based. The love affair with Obama ended at this place about two years ago. Consensus is that Obama is indeed going to lose so they are already talking about how they will pivot themselves career-wise in a new administration.
* www.AintitCool.com — straight male lefties mostly. A lot of them are around 18-25 I think. Lots of talk of boobies and wanting to rape conservative women or murder them. Lately there’s been very little political talk, though. When it does happen in an article, it’s nothing positive about Obama…just people calling Romney too rich or a liar. They never say what he lies about though, they just call him a liar. That’s because Romney is not old and does not come off as evil, so they can’t call him that. He’s also clearly not stupid, so that’s out. So they call him a liar according to Alinsky Rule #14. More often than not, the lefties on this site get shouted down by people who are sick of Obama and just want to have jobs and paychecks again.
* www.People.com — very, very, VERY low information people come to People.com. Idiots, really. If a story is being talked about THERE, of all places, then I know 80% of the public knows about it. This site is only for people who hate reading in general, don’t really like the news, but have opinions on the Kardashians or Lindsay Lohan, etc. If they start talking about something political then I know everyone at the grocery store or McDonalds was talking about it and that people stealing carts from the Wal-Mart for scrap metal know about it too.
I want to close by reminding you that very few Americans read political websites or really follow much of the news. If you do, you’re part of the 20% who stays actively informed. The rest of the country is more influenced by their friends and families and pop culture than they are political writers like me or what we do at this site. That’s true of everyone on the Left, too, though…as most of them get their info from their own friends or through their celebrities in pop culture.
That’s why Republicans need to be more active online and in pop culture in general…because like it or not, this is where opinion is being formed.
I will say, though, that base don my market research analysis of all this that the opinion being formed by voters this year is very much that Barack Obama needs to be one and done and not win reelection.
Don’t take my word for it, though: go out and conduct your own research and report back in comments below what YOU discover too.
© 2012, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
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Kevin, why aren’t the republicans countering this “romnesia” thing on twitter? I’ve noticed that some people have commented about it on various conservative sites and they are being virtually ignored.
You are right, the republicans need to get ahead of some of this stuff through social media.
Seems to me the “Romnesia” is largely being ignored because it’s more arrogant than it is effective. Not the sort of comment that gets people motivated in either direction.
I’m not on twitter but I read somewhere that #Obamnesia is a conservative response.
Michelle Malkin has countered this with the hashtag #Obamanesia
You can see other clever ways she counters the left on twitchy.com
Beat me to it!
Drudge’s headline for that story:
“Obamaitus turns into Romnesia…”
—
Incidentally, does anyone else think Drudge is doing another of his winks to the readers with this headline arrangement?
“Male nude posters plaster Vienna, draw complaints…
Ahead of Election, President Stops Releasing ‘Stimulus’ Reports…”
Romnesia is a thinly-veiled reference to Rhodesia, the minority white-controlled state preceding Mugabe’s corrupt Zimbabwe. There were many battles fought before the white minority ceded power. In this case, it is a reference to the election of 2020.
Thank you.
I would never make that association – and believe, oh, about 99% of the normal U.S. population would not get it either.
So for the Stalinist-Loving LEFTISTS = EPIC FAIL.
Thanks for the explanation again!
Something I noticed when heading to the “Being Liberal” page really surprised me, though it shouldn’t have: Being Conservative has six times the fans of Being Liberal. Seriously.
BL = 442,412 likes · 810,751 talking about this
BC = 2,620,549 likes · 208,493 talking about this
Note, though, the activity rate. I assume that’s because we’re feeling a little more comfortable in the polls and conservatives are less likely to be “out” in a public forum as opposed to a place like twitter where you and your followers tend to be of like mind.
*I say it shouldn’t surprise me because I know we’re much more active and effective in social media in the first place. Out of the politically active people on twitter I bet 75% are conservative.
As always, a great read Kevin. Every Conservative should be doing this!
1) As ever, thanks for all the work you do. The energy you must have to do all this work and writing.
2) If you kept a good diary or timeline with examples of stories moving from these leftist sites to the New York Times, you would have the germ of a great master’s thesis in journalism school or coms–or another post.
3) If one were to go to all this effort to track leftist discourse, what would one do with it to counter them? Do you think we should wade into the comment threads at news sites as the leftists’ chosen themes emerge? Should we do that at the celebrity tattle sites?
4) Is there a pop-culture open thread where one could go and declare, “Tomorrow or the next day the NYT will start to push the story X”? You or someone in the Hillbuzz community could almost pose as sort of oracle. And if it came with a counter-narrative, would that start to inoculate low-information people against Minitru?
May I add to your list of websites?
Warning on all the links, they can be NSFW and have profanity.
Oh No They Didn’t (http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/) – Very left-oriented to the point of foaming at the mouth against the “Magical Mormon his wife ‘B****face’”, warning sometimes NSFW and gif icons that can be seizure-inducing.
Crazy Days and Nights (http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/) – an assumed entertainment lawyer from LA that leans left. Comments can get vitriolic at time.
TVbytheNumbers (http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/) – mostly just Nielsen ratings but when politics come up, flame wars happen.
TVline (http://tvline.com/) – a sister site to Deadline, like TVbytheNumbers… politics cause flame wars.
The Cheezburger network (http://www.cheezburger.com/site-directory) – the comments on political posts, outside of Pundit Kitchen (which is a breeding ground for leftist memes) are getting very amusing, conservatives must be taking a page from Alinsky.
Unfunny Business (http://www.journalfen.net/community/unfunnybusiness/) – A community for anything that inducing rage within the leftist ranks on JournalFen. I hardly ever read this community because it just ends up ticking me off by the foaming lefty masses.
GACK!!! Kevin, I just can’t do it!! I tried it but, I can not stand to read that crap!! Please continue to monitor and tell me all about it. I do not have the stomach to submerge into the that sludge.
I get angry when I go to CNN…I cannot phathom going to an actually lefty site. My blood pressure literally rises.
I got so angry at some smug lefty who said that Ann Romney looked bored at the dinner last night that we should check out her facial expressions. I had to give them a little knowledge about having MS…since clearly he/she was ignorant. To bash Ann Romney makes my blood boil. She is such a lovely woman.
I thought she looked as if she is having a relapse of her MS. I know a couple of people with MS, and that is what they look like when they are “going down”.
ACTUALLY………………..CNN is a LEFTIST Sight!!!! = ^ D
Oh yes! Being a professional illustrator, a great many of my FB “friends are other professional illustrators since my participation in FB began as a way to be in contact with all the other illustrators all over the country ( and world ) tucked away working in their solitary studios.
A great majority of them are serious Lefties and post and share with great abandon from groups like “I Love Waking Up Every Morning When Obama Is President” and 1000000 Vaginas”.
Once in a while I comment on their posts but most often I simply notice what’s happening and gauge the level of hysteria and “Shares” otherwise I wouldn’t get my work done.
I find this a great gauge as to Leftie GroupThink and what subjects get Lefty Artists really jazzed up….Big Bird…stupid Binders and the endless boring drivel about contraception, abortions etc…ie…if Romney wins women will DIE because of coat hangers again! Also how Republicans and Christians are anti Science and big fat Racists! Also Lefty Women hate Conservative Women like crazy. I’ve been called a lot of nasty names.
Lately they are talking a lot about how Romney is ahead in the polls and sounding pretty depressed and how they can’t believe how incredibly backward and stupid Americans really are, not like the cool French.
I will keep my eyes open for especially ridiculous things and post some here…..they’re pretty crazy.
Good god, they think the French are cool?
Kevin, you are a gem to do all of this. I tried reading a few leftist sites and the level of vitriol and ignorance was just amazing. It’s a wonder their own brains don’t poison them with the stuff they think and say.
By the way, I’ve heard that the Chicago Jewish Star came out with a Romney endorsement. I don’t live anywhere near Chicago so can’t check it out. I’m not a subscriber so can’t get to it online. This is the oldest Jewish paper in Skokie. No, I’m not Jewish either. Just reporting something that is surprisingly good if it’s accurate.
How about makeupalley.com – it’s a site supposedly for women’s beauty and health, but there’s a “cafe” board where the leftie hags dominate! The ignorance of the “ladies” on this board would blow your mind. It’s almost too hard to believe.
look up the page Bleeding Heart Liberal … so what’s upsetting them? Tagg Romney!!
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/19137 Read the comments
relax! LA Times called it a lame attempt!
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-msnbc-tagg-romneys-obama-20121019,0,6125990.story
The petition is from change.org … 6K people have signed it.
http://www.change.org/petitions/attorney-general-eric-holder-investigate-tagg-romney-owning-voting-machines-in-ohio
Have fun with the intel!
I prefer the term “Regressives”….because most “progressives” want to turn back the clock.
I’d also suggest that conservatives should look at Reddit.com The site as a whole has a high number of young male lefties, and reddit is the source of a lot of the photographic “memes” that end up showing up on facebook. There are some conservative “subreddits” there but it’s mostly Leftists.
You changed the way I view some of my facebook friends who like to bombard me daily with anti-Republican rantings. Good thoughts here.
oohh, interesting about Makeup Alley. I use it once in a while for the reviews and hadn’t even looked at/for the cafe area.
I’ve had the opposite experience with style blogs. I peek in at a lot of them and some read more regularly. In the last presidential election, I stopped reading ALL of those sites until it was over. Could not believe how they were laced with vicious attacks on Republican women candidates, Republican women, conservative policies, the stupidity of conservatives…
Expected I would have to go cold turkey again this year and have not come across a single derogatory comment.
This is a fascinating article.
Where do you get your “Alinsky Rules”? I haven’t researched this exhaustively but I thought a fun thing to do might be to post a rule a day on my FB page. According to the Wikipedia page on the Alinsky book, there are only 12 rules:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals
According to this, Rule #5 is: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
Is there an expanded or more plainly worded list that you’re using?
I was also thinking it would be fun to post quotations from the DNC platform and also the platforms and goals of the communist party decades ago, the ones Glenn Beck did a few shows on about goals like destroying the nuclear family by encouraging out of wedlock births, and juxtapose that against actual modern statistics demonstrating that they have largely achieved their goals. And then of course there are the goals of Margaret Sanger.
I don’t know if I really have the energy to pursue this successfully, so I offer it to you.
A few proofreading corrections for this article:
Here’s 5 Tips > Here are 5 Tips
employes > employs
base don > based on
RUle 13 = Pick the Target, Freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
According to the Wikipedia article, that is Rule 12.