Comparing Oklahoma's General Election Candidates on Facebook

Back in 2009, I did a post that attracted a lot of attention about how many Facebook fans Oklahoma politicians/candidates had. I didn't have time to do a similar one before the primary, but here are the statewide general election matchups (post-runoff). Red is for Republicans, Blue is for Democrats, and Gray is for Independent candidates.

U.S. Senate - full term

Jim Inhofe: 36,242
Matt Silverstein: 16,194
Aaron DeLozier: N/A

Joan Farr: N/A

Ray Woods: N/A

U.S. Senate - partial term

James Lankford: 38,863

Connie Johnson: 4,778

Mark Beard: N/A

U.S. House - District 2

Markwayne Mullin: 7,194
Earl Everett: N/A
Jon Douthitt: N/A

U.S. House - District 3

Frank Lucas: 40,116
Frankie Robbins: N/A

U.S. House - District 4

Tom Cole: 9,265
Bert Smith: N/A
Dennis Johnson: N/A

U.S. House - District 5

Al McAffrey: 5,475
Steve Russell: 2,418
Robert Murphy: 17
Tom Boggs: N/A
Buddy Ray: N/A

Governor

Mary Fallin: 35,872
Joe Dorman: 13,445

Richard Prawdzienski: 751
Joe Sills: N/A
Kimberly Willis: N/A

Lieutenant Governor

Todd Lamb: 524

Cathy Cummings: N/A

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Joy Hofmeister: 11,662
John Cox: 4,969

Labor Commissioner

Mark Costello: 4,958
Mike Workman: 580

Gov. 2.0a Conference Recap

I attended the Gov 2.0a conference in Oklahoma City this past week, and came away with a lot of valuable information.

What exactly is meant by "Government 2.0"? Applying new technology to how government is run, in order to make it more efficient, transparent, accountable, and participatory.

Speakers at the conference spoke on a variety of topics, from utilizing social networking to interact citizens/constituents, to how using technology can save money and improve services, to how a transparent government can spark (as speaker Laurel Ruma said) an "innovation economy".

Here are just a few quotes and tidbits from the conference.

• Laurel Ruma: "People are moving from using Social Web to participating in Civic Web."
• Carolyn Purcell: "Web 1.0 was the government giving citizens information. Web 2.0 is two-way interaction and communication between the government and its citizens."
• Mark Mitchell: "eGovernment encourages citizens to get "online" instead on "in-line" to interact with government."
• Mike Koehler: "People are hungry for information, and for participation."
• There are 192 members of Congress on Twitter - 65% are Republicans.
• Crowd-sourcing is a way to get citizens and employees involved. Sam's Club has saved $1M by unscrewing lightbulbs in their store vending machines - just one idea that came from crowd-sourcing with their employees.
• 75% of people get some of their news from blogs or social media. Kind of like you're doing right now!
• Facebook has 400,000,000 users, and Twitter has 105,000,000 users.
• SeeClickFix is an amazing tool that local governments should take advantage of. Citizens can post issues (i.e. potholes, graffiti, etc.) on a map of their city. The city is then made aware of the problem, and takes care of it. Not only does the citizen know that the issue was resolved, but it builds goodwill between the government and the citizens (as opposed to the all-too-often situation of a local government that seems unresponsive to citizen input).
• Manor, Texas, is on the forefront of the Gov 2.0 scene. They utilize social networking, crowd-sourcing, SeeClickFix, and a very interesting way to communicate with the public called QR-Codes, just to name a few.
  

I can't give the conference justice in a post here, but video from the event will be up on Gov20a.com soon. Once it is posted, I will link to the videos.

Comparing Oklahoma Politicians/Candidates on Facebook

The McCarville Report Online reported this morning that 5th District Congressional Candidate James Lankford recently surpassed the 10,000 Facebook supporters mark, making him the first Oklahoma candidate or politician to reach that milestone.

Admittedly, I was in some disbelief that Lankford, a newcomer to politics, could have more Facebook fans than every other major politician in Oklahoma. So, I logged into Facebook, and conducted a very thorough search of politicians and candidates in Oklahoma, and the number of fans they had.

The results stunned me.

Not only does Lankford have the most Facebook support, he has over 2 1/2 times more fans than the nearest competitor. Ironically, that person is the incumbent of the office Lankford seeks - Mary Fallin (who is running for Governor).

For those political junkies out there, here is the list of politicians and candidates that I compiled, with a few notes. There may have been a few who slipped between the cracks, but not many could have. I compiled this between 2pm-3pm today.

Name / Current Office / Office Sought / Facebook Fans

James Lankford.... n/a............ Cong Dist. 5..... 10,069
Mary Fallin........... CD5........... Gov.................. 3,833
Tom Coburn......... US Sen....... US Sen............. 3,351
Brad Henry.......... Governor..... n/a.................. 2,008
Andrew Rice......... State Sen... State Sen......... 1,830 *
Drew Edmondson.. Atty Gen..... Gov................. 1,739
Jim Inhofe........... US Sen....... US Sen............. 1,654
Randy Brogdon..... State Sen...Gov................... 1,534
RJ Harris.............. n/a........... CD4.................. 1,514
Brittany Novotny... n/a........... State House....... 1,294 **
Dewey Bartlett..... Tulsa Mayor.... (just won)..... 1,158
Jari Askins........... Lt Gov......... Gov................. 1,116
Kenneth Corn....... State Sen.... LtG................... 978
John Sullivan....... CD1............. CD1.................. 960
Al McAffrey.......... State House... State House.... 940 ***
Tom Adelson....... State Sen..... State Sen.......... 935
Rob Johnson........ n/a.............. State Sen......... 760
Todd Lamb.......... State Sen..... LtG.................. 726
Ryan Leonard...... n/a.............. AG................... 692
Shawn Hime........ n/a.............. State Super....... 653
Charles Key........ State House... State House..... 633
Steve Gallo......... n/a............... State House..... 609
John T. Hammons. Muskogee Mayor..... Mayor?.... 573 ****
David Holt.......... n/a............... State Senate..... 560
Dan Boren.......... CD2.............. CD2................. 541
Frank Lucas........ CD3.............. CD3................. 527
Tom Cole........... CD4............... CD4................ 499
David Hogan....... n/a................ State House.... 494
Mike Sanders...... State House.... State House.... 483
Randall Gorman.. n/a................ State Super..... 414
Jay Paul Gumm... State Sen....... State Sen........ 410
Kevin Calvey........ n/a............. CD5.................. 392
Dan Arnett......... n/a................ CD2................ 370
Susan Paddack.... State Sen....... State Super..... 360
Seneca Scott...... State House.... State House..... 291
Nathan Dahm..... n/a................ CD1................. 279
Janet Barresi...... n/a................ State Super...... 241
Jason Reese....... n/a................ Labor Comm..... 232
Mick Cornett...... OKC Mayor....... OKC Mayor....... 230
Johnny Roy........ n/a................. CD5................ 221
Shawnnessy Murphy.. n/a........... State Sen........ 205
Lee Denney........ State House.... State House.... 191
Clark Jolley......... State Sen........ Atty Gen........ 187
Kathy Taylor....... Tulsa Mayor.... n/a................. 183
Mark McCullough.. State House.... State House.... 178
Scott Martin........ State House.... State House.... 164
Sean Burrage....... State Sen...... State Sen........ 158
Dan Newberry..... State Sen....... State Sen........ 152
Jeff Cloud........... Corp Com....... CD5................ 151
Steve Burrage..... State Auditor... State Aud....... 139
Mike Thompson... State House.... CD5............... 129
George Faught.... State House.... State House.... 119
Charles Thompson.. n/a............ CD2................ 100
Owen Laughlin.... n/a............. State Treasurer.. 100
John Wright........ State House... LtG.................. 96
Howard Houchen.... n/a............ CD2.................. 94
Cory Williams...... State House... State House..... 92
Shane Jett.......... State House.... State House.... 58
John Sparks........ State Sen....... State Sen......... 55
Daniel Edmonds... n/a............... CD2................. 44
Sally Kern........... State House... State House..... 32
Oden Grube........ n/a............... State House...... 28
Chris Pierce......... n/a............... State House..... 22
Anthony Sykes.... State Sen...... State Sen.......... 20
Doug Cox........... State House.... State House..... 18
Gary Stanislawski.. State Sen.... State Sen.......... 12
Mike Mazzei........ State Sen..... State Sen............ 1

Notes

* - 2008 Democrat Senate nominee ** - Bisexual, and running against controversial conservative Rep. Sally Kern. Most of Novotny's numbers are likely from the homosexual/etc. community across the nation. *** - Homosexual. See final point above. **** - Famous as the youngest mayor in America, hence high figure.

As you can see, Lankford has a very high amount of Facebook support. There are several other interesting notes in the list, if you look at it enough (for instance, the difference between congressional candidates' figures).

UPDATE: I only used figures from fan pages and groups, not personal profiles. In instances of multiple groups, I picked the one with the most members, except in one instance (Kenneth Corn has several groups, but has discontinued all but one, and directed the members to join his newest group, which had slightly fewer members to date).

If you run across someone I missed, I would appreciate the notice! You can email me at muskogeepolitico@gmail.com.