“1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T. Colbert” pairs up with “Rock the Vote”
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This is actually pretty cool. According to My DD and “Rock the Vote”, the latest Colbert-related activity on Facebook (also known as “the MyFace”) is racing along. From My DD and Rock the Vote (my emphasis added, internal link omitted):
Rock the Vote & Stephen Colbert Group Register 4,000+ Voters…And Counting
by ChrisKennedy, Tue Oct 30, 2007 at 05:22:15 PM ESTThe media has been touting the phenomenal growth of Stephen Colbert’s Facebook group, which was created by high school student Raj Vachhani after Colbert announced his plan to run for president in South Carolina. In a mere eight days the group boasted a million members, and is currently shooting above 1.2 million.
Aside from an amazing membership count, this pop culture phenomenon has made a real political impact: more than 4,300 members have registered to vote via the group since Vachhani added a link to Rock the Vote on Thursday night (Oct. 24). That’s about one registration per minute.
I hope “the MyFace” has fixed its server issues, once and for all!
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10 Comments
October 30th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
An OT tip for you – doonesbury.com’s poll this week is all about Stephen! http://cgi.doonesbury.com/cgi-bin/view_poll.cgi
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October 30th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
So much for not having any actual role in political discourse, huh?
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October 30th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I’m certainly glad he’s chosen to use his power for good, not evil. :)
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October 30th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
@Murasaki: I’m not sure if the drift of your drift is that this is rather ’sad.’ (Cp. your remark below about Stephen polling 6%). I do think that it would be more reassuring if more young people had *already* registered to vote long before Stephen’s run because e.g., they are outraged/concerned about a significant issue (e.g. the war, health care).
But their registering now in this fashion does not mean they’re incapable of serious future deliberation about the race, or that they intend to do something silly (write in Stephen’s name on their ballot). This is most likely an effect of the ease of registration that the site affords. One thing it shows perhaps unambiguously is that more voters will register if the means to do so are ubiquitous and easy to access.
I do agree that anyone who is seriously considering voting for Stephen, even in S.C., is doing something really dumb. You’d have to hold a gun to my head to get me to throw away my vote on a joke candidate, even in a primary.
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October 30th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
While I do find the high number of people who’d be willing to vote for Stephen discouraging, I certainly don’t consider increasing political awareness among younger, more liberal people to be a bad thing. If there are tangible good results of Stephen’s running, I think that would be wonderful. I was simply referring to Stephen’s previous comments about having no interest in being part of political discourse.
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October 30th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
…I hardly think voting for Stephen would be throwing away your vote.
Or rather, it would be, but oh wait so would voting for Anyone Else.
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October 30th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
@Shrutri: I understand your exasperation. Due to the campaign finance laws, the system is broken; but not beyond repair, if people who want change vote in sufficient numbers.
@Murasaki: Thanks for the clarification. Speaking of tangible good results of Stephen’s running–when I saw the ‘1 million’ news about ‘the Facebook’, my first thought was: those kids are probably spending at least a dollar a day in utility bills to run their laptops to access the site. I wish Stephen would tell all million to send one dollar to the YRF. People who are getting their balls blown off in Iraq could use a little of that attention. (As for the Iraqis: God forgive us). And are the famous folk we’ve seen wearing Stephen’s bracelet (Al Gore, Obama, Clinton, sort of) really making contributions? If they’re not, I wish Stephen would call them out on it before Fox news does.
‘Seriously, y’all’–Let’s do the 10,000 fan march: 10 months, 10 bucks a month, 1 million for Stephen’s charity. It’s the end of the month. Cut a check.
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October 30th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Eh, I’m almost more disgusted by the system itself (plurality voting; two-party system; electoral college) than by the corruption within it. And none of *that*’s going to change, by its very nature it won’t.
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October 30th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Also, I don’t understand the tone you take with “those kids.” Like, oh, those kids. It seems kind of derogatory. I don’t get it. It just seems like a stupid generalization. Like, there would be no point to my saying, “oh, those adults, always wasting money by using technology inefficiently,” right? So why is so acceptable to do the opposite? And I’m not trying to attack you. It’s just that this criticism of youth is always so very prevalent; it gets tiresome. I know what I believe and I know that I have pretty sound judgment most of the time, and I don’t see why that always has to be called into question. And I don’t see why my actions / the actions of my peers should be somehow less acceptable or necessarily be viewed as more irresponsible than adults’.
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October 30th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
@Shrutri: Perhaps the point I was making was stupid (my points often are) but it wasn’t a generalization, it was an opinion about a specific event. By ‘kids’ I meant young Facebook users–but perhaps I should have said ‘those guys’ or ‘they.’
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