April 5, 2011
Putting the election on a graph
I’ve added another page for those of you who can’t get enough election data. This one tracks Google searches day by day on a graph for the federal parties and their leaders.
It’s not exactly the same thing as a poll, but Campaign Trends does give some indication of what people are interested in. Among the leaders, Stephen Harper is ahead as might be expected for the incumbent prime minister. But for the parties, it’s a lot closer. The NDP has been ahead much of the time and the Liberals have had a recent spike.
What does it all mean? I’ll let you decide.
Meanwhile, over at the Follow the Candidates page, I’ve noticed that some of the candidates are starting to respond to questions on Twitter. It’s nice to see some give and take, because all too often Twitter and Facebook are used simply to make pronouncements.
It’s particularly heartening to see responses to Westsyde secondary school students who set up a special Twitter account to ask questions — what a great way to get young people engaged. They were roundly ignored by party leaders, but local candidates stepped up to the plate, thankfully.
Speaking of election data, I also noticed that Donovan Cavers has taken the lead in the “like” department. As of this writing, he has 224 Facebook likes, compared with 124 for Michael Crawford and 69 for Cathy McLeod. Is Cavers really three times more likable than McLeod? Once again, I’ll let you decide.