final push to Iowa caucus

The final push -- who is getting the attention?

Iowa is the first electoral test for the Republican candidates. It always gets a lot of attention, which the TV stations love. It is hard not to get rich when candidates are poring as much money into advertising as happens this three or four weeks. Rick Perry may be the champion TV advertiser; I do not watch television at the time most of the advertising is being broadcast so I am not confident in my perception.

Who is making headway and who not? Of course the polls tell one story. Twitter gives a somewhat different story. It is not who are you going to vote for? It is to whom are Twitter users paying attention? So here are the numbers.

For the also rans

This is Twitter messages per day from December 26 through December 31. People generally took a break from Twitter and politics to celebrate Christmas, and the build up after Christmas took a couple of days.

It is a good thing that Mr. Huntsman believes "in Iowa they pick corn and in New Hampshire they pick candidates" because it is hard to see that he is getting any attention in the build up to Iowa. Notwithstanding all of the investment in political ads there is hardly a spike for Mr. Perry. But he has three days to go. And Bachmann had a substantial spike with up to 13,000 Twitter messages on the 29th. But it lasted only one day -- two if one wants to be generous.

Notice the range for the 'also rans' is a few hundred to 14,000.

Now for the candidates in the news.

The dates are the same -- December 26 through 31. But the range is substantially different. It is from a few hundred to almost 50,000.

According to the news there is a 'surge' for Santorum, and that does seem to have attracted a bit of attention, but the numbers do not come close to the leaders; his 'best' is about 18,000. Then there is Gingrich who was the 'spiking' candidate. Attention is not substantial and is flat.

Of course, the currently spiking candidate is Ron Paul. Those numbers are up for an average of five or six thousand for most of the 'season.' He is well ahead of where he was. It is definitely a big spike, but it looks like it hit the peak and is coming down.

And "what to my wondering eyes should appear" but Romney surging. He makes it up to 35,000 Twitter messages on the 30th. But he, like Ron Paul, slumped on new year's eve.

Stay tuned for the next exciting 'episode.'