Kifah Mustapha, Muslim Appointee As Chaplain For Illinois State Police, Turned Away Following Background Check
CHICAGO — The Illinois State Police has revoked the appointment of the agency's first Muslim chaplain, citing only information revealed during a background check. A national Muslim advocacy group Wednesday blamed the move on Islamophobia...
Categories: World Tags: agency, holy land foundation, Illinois, illinois state police, Investigative, investigative project on terrorism, Kifah, Muslim, muslim brotherhood, muslim chaplain
Why are public pension funds allowed to be psychotically risky?
61% underfunded Illinois Teachers Pension Fund goes for broke, becomes next AIG-In-Waiting by selling billions in credit default swaps 81.5% of their portfolio is considered risky. Presumably their managers assume the fund will be bailed out if needed and, hey, they’re paying themselves big salaries and have no skin in the game, why should they care [...]
Categories: Politics Tags: attempt, credit default swaps, exposure curve, game, Illinois, interest rate swaps, portfolio, public pension fund, public pension funds, skin
Robert Guttman: Presidential Possibilities 2012: If They Are Writing, They Are Running
In the middle of our anti-incumbent, anti-Washington primary season for the 2010 congressional races there are a large number of old and new faces plotting...
Categories: World Tags: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, A Simple, Alaska, alaska governor sarah palin, America, Arkansas, Bob McDonnell, book, Chris Christie, Clinton, Conservatism, eric cantor, faith, flag, Former, General David Petreaus, GOP, Governor, governor sarah palin, haley barbour, heart reflections, Illinois, Indiana, Joe Scarborough, Kentucky, louisiana, Massachusetts, Mike Huckabee, minnesota, Mississippi, Mitch Daniels, New Jersey, newt gingrich, President, President Obama, Rand Paul, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Rep. Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Romney, sarah palin, Scott Brown, Secretary of State Hillary, Senator Evan Bayh, Senator John Thune, Senator Rick Santorum, South Dakota, texas, Tim Pawlenty, U.S., Virginia, Washington
Tabby Biddle: Empowering Incarcerated Teens: An Interview With Meade Palidofsky
For 20 years, Meade Palidofsky has been working in juvenile prisons, helping young people find their voice and tell their stories through performance art. I learned about her incredible work through the documentary, "Girls on the Wall."
Categories: World Tags: amazing age, artistic director, brighter future, dysfunctional, everyone, Illinois, performance art, something, story, street gang, tabby, time
Blagojevich Trial: Judge Says Names Of Jurors Will Be Kept Secret
CHICAGO — The judge presiding over former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's corruption case said Monday that the names of the jurors will be kept secret from the public to prevent anyone from contacting them to discuss the trial. U.S. Dis...
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2010 USHL Futures Draft: Defense Prospect Profiles
via ushl.com View full size photo » SB Nation has teamed up with the USHL Prospects Blog to bring you closer to th...
Categories: Media Tags: Aurora, Buffalo, buffalo regals, Chicago, defenseman, Des Moines, DETROIT, draft, Dylan Blujus, Eric Knodel, Fargo, Grant Webermin, Illinois, Justin Schreiber, Justin Wade, Lincoln, Marek Hrbas, Mathieu Brisson, michigan, nbsp, offensive numbers, offensive output, Omaha, Piazza, Quebec, Sam, Silver Stick, US, ushl, ushl draft, ushl futures draft, Wade, Wisconsin, Yale
Social Media: How the Campaigns Stack Up
The blogosphere truly became a force in 2004; ActBlue became a major online fundraising (and organizing) tool in 2006; Obama campaign's use of the internet for organizing gained widespread attention in 2008. Democrats clearly did better at campaigning, organizing, and fundraising online. Then in 2010, Scott Brown kicked Martha Coakley's ass across the entire internet. Suddenly the story became "can Democrats catch up online?"
That's a stupid question, because one race in which an effective candidate out-organizes a deeply flawed and inept candidate does not partywide dominance make. But it suggests we absolutely should be paying attention to how campaigns are doing at online organizing.
This essay marks the beginning of an occasional series examining just that. Today, I'm focusing on some races for open Senate seats, two Republican, two Democratic. I'm also focusing on Twitter and Facebook. There are many more races to cover and many more forms of online media to look at -- how many times have their YouTube videos been viewed? Are they engaging with the blogosphere? What are their online ad buys like? Online fundraising, texting...there's a wealth of media to check out. But Twitter and Facebook are public metrics that are readily comparable.
We'll expect candidates to have more Facebook fans than followers on Twitter, because there are many more people on Facebook. But advertising on Facebook can rack up large numbers of fans relatively quickly, so a case where a candidate's Facebook-to-Twitter ratio seems out of the ordinary may suggest that the campaign has been advertising heavily on Facebook. (Which may be a good idea, mind you.) Also worth noting, some Republican candidates (including Peter Schiff in today's group) have created splash pages on Facebook -- when you search for them and initially go to the page, instead of seeing a normal Facebook wall there's...a splash page -- big graphic, sign-up, etc. I haven't yet found any Democrats who are doing that.
So, without further ado, a basic look at the Senate races in Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Ohio. In order to be able to compare across states, I've divided the number of followers a candidate has on each platform by the number of congressional districts in their state. And while I didn't look up numbers for every race on the same day (so some may be as much as a week old), the numbers for each candidate in a given race were compiled within minutes of each other.
Connecticut has five districts:
Democratic candidate (and current attorney general) Richard Blumenthal's Facebook page has 15,215 fans. That's 3,043 per district. His Twitter account, DickBlumenthal, has 645 followers (129 per district).
Blumenthal has three Republican opponents. Linda McMahon's Facebook page has 10,097 fans (2,019.4 per district). On Twitter, her LindaforSenate account has 5,386 followers (1,077.2 per district). Rob Simmons' Facebook page has 2,867 fans (573.4 per district), while his RobSimmons Twitter account has 2,065 followers (413 per district). Trailing in the polls but not on Facebook, Peter Schiff's Facebook page has 32,807 fans -- a whopping 6,561.4 per district. On Twitter, his SchiffforSenate account has 4,019 followers (803.8 per district). Schiff has obviously put some money into his Facebook page. As previously noted, a search for his page leads not to a traditional Facebook wall but to a splash page built into Facebook. And his extraordinary number of fans suggests that he's been doing advertising.
Verdict: Blumenthal holds his own on Facebook, but lags the Republicans on Twitter.
Illinois has 19 districts:
State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias' Facebook page has 8,651 fans -- 455.3 per district. He has two Twitter accounts. Seemingly Giannoulias is his own account, with 1,018 followers (53.6 per district), while Alexi4Illinois is a campaign account used by staff, with 1,875 followers (98.7 per district).
Republican Rep. Mark Kirk's Facebook page has 10,555 fans (555.5 per district), while his Kirk4Senate Twitter account has 3,177 followers (167.2 per district).
Verdict: It is difficult to know how to weigh Giannoulias' followers on Twitter, given the two accounts -- but Kirk gets a clear victory, since he has more followers on Twitter than the two Giannoulias accounts combined. He also gets a solid, though not dominating win on Facebook.
New Hampshire has two districts:
Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes' Facebook page has 2,268 fans (1,134 per district). His PaulHodes Twitter account has 1,115 followers (557.5 per district).
Republican frontrunner (and former attorney general) Kelly Ayotte's Facebook page has 2,258 fans (1,129 per district). Her Ayotte2010 Twitter account has 860 followers (430 per district). Wealthy businessman Bill Binnie's Facebook page has 680 fans (340 per district). His Binnie2010 Twitter account has 435 followers (217.5 per district). And trailing the pack, Ovide Lamontagne's Facebook page has 957 fans (478.5 per district), while his Ovidein2010 Twitter account has 777 followers (388.5 per district).
Verdict: Hodes has a very narrow lead on Facebook and a wider one on Twitter.
Ohio has 18 districts:
Democratic Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher's Facebook page has 4,048 fans (224.9 per district), while his FisherforOhio Twitter account has 1,200 followers (66.67 per district). By contrast, Republican Rob Portman's Facebook page has 11,147 fans (619.3 per district) and his RobPortman Twitter account has 1,855 followers (103.1 per district).
Verdict: Fisher trails Portman badly on both Twitter and Facebook.
Final thoughts: It's clear that Republicans don't own social media. It's a pretty even fight, by the numbers. But there's a lot more to be said, both about other media (as discussed above) and about how the campaigns are using these platforms to communicate and organize. Please chime in in the comments with observations about that. And I'd love to hear what kind of online ads you're seeing if you live in an area with a competitive race. Tell us in the comments, or email me at Laura (dot) DK (dot) Adinfo (at) gmail (dot) com. I'll start compiling impressions about that.
Categories: Politics Tags: account, Bill Binnie, Connecticut, CT-Sen, district, facebook, graphic sign, IL-Sen, Illinois, Kirk, Linda McMahon, Martha Coakley, New Hampshire, NH-Sen, OH-Sen, ohio, open senate, page, Peter Schiff, Rep. Mark Kirk, Rep. Paul Hodes, republican candidates, Richard Blumenthal, Rob Simmons, Scott Brown, senate seats, social media, Twitter
Preakness Stakes 2010: A Horse-By-Horse Preview
SB Nation's horse racing expert, Matt Gardner, gives us a preview of all twelve horses running at the 135th Preakness Stakes on Saturday. This was originally posted here. Aikenite: This Todd Pletcher trainee won the first race of his career last Augu...
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FDIC Closes Four Banks: 72 Failed This Year
WASHINGTON — Regulators on Friday shut down Midwest Bank and Trust Company in Elmwood Park, Ill., as well as three smaller banks in Georgia, Michigan and Missouri to bring the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 72. The Federal De...
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