Pssst … are you a Democratic politician? Is your campaign feeling a cash crunch? This Los Angeles Times opinion piece that Jennie pointed me to earlier suggests that you’d be wise to consider an appearance on The Colbert Report:
Sharing the wealthiness
Democrats can count on the ‘Colbert bump’ to boost their campaign war chests.
By James H. Fowler
February 28, 2008Hillary Clinton is out of money. She recently loaned $5 million to her own campaign just as Barack Obama was setting records by raising $32 million in January. As the two of them race ahead, winning the money game now is more important than ever. But where can she turn? Two words: Stephen Colbert.
In character, Colbert claims that anyone who comes on his Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report,” receives a boost in popularity that immediately vaults the guest to stardom, fame and fortune. Fans have pointed to several pieces of evidence that the “Colbert bump” is real. Colbert helped former Orleans singer John Hall win his seat in Congress. Ned Lamont came on the show and then promptly beat Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary. And in this year’s presidential race, popular support for Ron Paul doubled and for Mike Huckabee tripled immediately after they appeared on the show (never mind that they both started at a paltry 1%). At that rate of increase, Colbert quipped, Huckabee could be the first candidate ever to win 88,128,000% of the vote.
. . .
Such amateur statistics fall prey to the problem of self-selection — candidates with secure seats may be much more likely than others to risk televised humiliation. Just ask Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn A. Westmoreland, who advocates putting the Ten Commandments on the walls of Congress — he could only name three of them on the show — or Florida Democrat Rep. Robert Wexler, whom Colbert goaded into saying he liked cocaine and prostitutes “because it’s a fun thing to do.” Both were incumbents facing no serious competition.
But it is possible to control for the self-selection problem by also examining similar candidates to those who went on “The Colbert Report.” So that’s exactly what I did in my study …
So what did I find? As it turns out, the Republican candidates who appear on the show don’t fare any better — if anything they might actually do a little worse than their fellow Republicans who stayed home. However, Democratic candidates who appear on “The Report” receive 44% more money than those who do not in the first month after their appearance. We no longer have to rely on the gut or Wikipedia — the evidence speaks for itself.
. . .
You can read the study here:
http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/colbert_bump.pdf
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
I’m surprised Colbert hasn’t put Nancy Pelosi on notice yet, just to see if she’d show up on “Better Know a District or be declared “Dead to me”.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
James Fowler,
Thanks! It is linked in the excerpt of the article I quoted, but it never hurts to have it set out separately, too. One of the New York Times blogs picked up on your study, too.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0
This is a very interesting study. I printed it out so I could read it carefully.
I’ve said this before on NFZ but I sometimes wonder why Mike Huckabee continues to make TCR appearances. I’m not complaining because I love it when he is on the show. He is very funny and likeable but his repeated appearances certainly haven’t convinced me to vote for him or to donate money to his campaign. It was helpful to Huckabee and Ron Paul to go on TCR when they were polling at less than 1% and no one knew who they were but I have been thinking that surely Huckabee hasn’t gained anything by going on the show multiple times since the majority of the audience is liberal and is also very well informed. This article seems to support what I already knew in my gut.
Democrats, on the other hand, should be lining up to do the BKAD segments.
Hillary Clinton definitely needs to consider becoming a “friend of the show”.
@Laura
I agree with you. Nancy Pelosi needs to be put on notice.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0