Who's Winning the 2008 Election: Obama or McCain?

source: Who's Winning the 2008 Election: Obama or McCain?


Back in January, when we analyzed Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's campaigns for the Democratic nomination, we predicted Obama's eventual victory based on leading Web 2.0 indicators. Despite the 13-point lead that Gallup assigned to Clinton, Obama's savvy approach to Web 2.0 indicators like traffic rank, social networking efficacy, and early adoption of search engine marketing led us to believe he was more effectively leveraging his supporters, giving him a decisive advantage over the more traditional campaign that Clinton was running.

Now that the Democratic presidential primary is over, the big question turns to whether Barack Obama or John McCain will be the next president of the United States. Gallup polls show a slight, but statistically insignificant lead, for Obama, hovering around a 46% voter share to McCain's 44%. But perhaps a better metric yet again for determining the winner of the 2008 election is to look at what people actually do versus what they say they will do. How well does conventional wisdom stack up against actual Web 2.0 usage results?