The Eventful Politics Project

Eventful’s Online Demand Data Reveals Obama and Huckabee Strong Ahead of Iowa Caucus

Posted by Alex on January 3, 2008 at 11:36 am

Obama and Huckabee Demanded in More Cities in State of Iowa Than Any Other Candidates

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Eventful, the leading global events web site, announced today that Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are the most ‘Demanded’ candidates by their users in the state of Iowa, and have surged to the top of Eventful’s Hottest Demands rankings, just hours before the first votes are cast in the Iowa caucus. Both Obama and Huckabee have requests to speak in over 60 cities throughout Iowa, more than any other candidate.

In the last 24 hours, Obama has amassed 1,436 new online Demands, from supporters lobbying for his appearance in local towns around the country. This brings his total to over 47,000, far ahead of the other leading Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Meanwhile, Huckabee has gained a more modest 258 new people in the same period to inch ahead of fellow Republican candidates such as John McCain and Ron Paul.

The Eventful Demand data reflects the findings of The Des Moines Register’s latest poll, placing Obama and Huckabee as the winners of today’s influential caucus.

The strength of online support in Iowa and the late surge in Demands may be seen as an indicator of today’s results, and could also indicate the engagement of a key demographic for winning the Iowa caucus - the youth vote.

Eventful Demand is a free online service that empowers supporters to lobby for political figures to come and speak in their local town. Using Eventful, candidates can track where they are most in demand, schedule appearances based on this data and also communicate directly with the Demanders via email.

Eventful Demand is a viral service that has transformed the way that audiences interact with public figures and performers, empowering them to directly influence where events take place. Eventful’s viral tools make it easy for campaigns and supporters to spread the word by including links and widgets in blogs, MySpace pages, Facebook groups and other social networking sites.

“Since the inception of the 2008 campaign, we’ve seen our users create grass-roots campaigns on our site, to lobby for their preferred candidate to come speak in their local town,” said Jordan Glazier, CEO at Eventful. “One of the key themes of this election has to be voter empowerment, enabling people to have their say on the issues that impact them the most. The increase in Demands ahead of today’s caucus reflects this, and could well be an indicator of the result.”

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Road trip!

Posted by Jed on October 9, 2007 at 8:11 am

We took a trip to Columbus, Kentucky last week to help out as the tiny town prepared for their visit from John Edwards.

Columbus isn’t close to any major airports, so we were treated to a beautiful drive through the heartland. In Columbus, we found countless wonderful people who were thrilled to get a visit from Senator Edwards. Good thing I brought a video camera.

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Edwards announces date for Columbus visit

Posted by Alex on September 25, 2007 at 2:02 pm

We are excited to announce that John Edwards will be visiting Columbus, KY on October 4th, as a result of the “Demand and Be Heard” competition. In fact, we are so excited, we’re going to be throwing a BBQ for the town prior to Edwards speaking. The entire event will take place at the Columbus-Belmont State Park.

At 11:30 am, Eventful will host a BBQ catered by local favorite Nicky’s Barbecue. Around 12:30 pm, John Edwards will meet with local residents and hold a Town Hall meeting.

Rumor has it, the local high school will be busing students in for the event, among other residents coming from all over. We are thrilled to bring a presidential candidate to a town who has never had one before, at least to Shawn Dixon’s knowledge.

Speaking of Dixon, check out this great article on Wired from yesterday’s front page.

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Huckabee campaign uses Eventful to help organize events

Posted by Alex on August 30, 2007 at 11:14 am

Mike Huckabee, the surprisingly strong finisher in the Iowa straw poll and the fastest growing candidate on the web, has adopted Eventful to help determine the governor’s campaign stops.

In a press release from yesterday, Chip Saltsman, Huckabee’s National Campaign Manager, stated:

We recently created a Mike Huckabee page on the eventful website. Our hope is that eventful will help us organize Governor Huckabee’s travel, give us insight into places the Governor should visit that we might not think of otherwise and help us gauge a level of support in various cities and towns around the country.

Yesterday, Huckabee added a link to his Eventful page on mikehuckabee.com, blogged about Eventful, and added us to their widgets page. This marks the first time that a campaign has added Eventful’s Demand stickers to their website as a major call to action for bloggers and supporters.

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Congrats Columbus, Kentucky

Posted by Alex on July 20, 2007 at 3:23 pm

Although belated, we just wanted to say congratulations to organizer Shawn Dixon and the small town of Columbus, KY. We are excited to see citizens not only partaking, but using grassroots organization to win a competition to bring a presidential candidate to their town and discuss the issues important to them. The contest ended Wednesday at noon with Columbus beating out Eureka, CA with 1832 people.

A lot of attention has been paid to the results of the contest, including some nice local pieces and a segment on CNN.

Also, we’d like to give many thanks to Shane Brinton of Eureka, CA for partaking in a similar quest to bring John Edwards to his town, and the thousands of people around the country who participated.

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Eureka Smackdown!

Posted by Alex on July 18, 2007 at 9:35 am

Things are getting heated in the John Edwards Demand and Be Heard competition with just a few hours left. Columbus, KY has released an attack ad accusing Eureka, CA of not being the rural America town it claims to be. No response yet from the Eureka camp. Glad to see everyone having fun with this!

View the Columbus Attack ad here.

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Columbus, KY beating mighty Los Angeles in Edwards competition

Posted by Alex on June 29, 2007 at 10:33 am

The power of grassroots organizing on the Internet is having a major influence over the John Edwards “Demand and Be Heard” competition. When we announced the competition, I assumed a large metropolitan area would win, and, to date, one has been in the lead. For the life of the nearly two week competition, Los Angeles has maintained a steady lead over upstarts such as Cocoa, FL and Eureka, CA. However, over the last 3 days, the tiny town of Columbus, Kentucky has moved from a handful of Demands past Los Angeles.

For those of you who have never heard of Columbus, KY (like myself before yesterday), it is a small town of 229 people on the banks of the Mississippi River. Columbus is known for almost becoming our nation’s capital. A fire in Washington, DC prompted Jefferson to nominate Columbus as a more central location for the hub of the federal government. Amazingly, it failed by only one vote in the Senate. 200 years later, the town is attempting to attract the attention of another potential President, John Edwards.

The creator of the Demand for John Edwards, and the driving force behind the movement, is 24 year old Shawn Dixon. According to Dixon in a front page article in the Paducah Sun, a regional newspaper with a circulation of around 25,000 people, “When candidates come to Kentucky, they always go to Lexington or Louisville to have a fundraiser and pick up checks,” he said. “The rural parts of the state are neglected. They need to come hear what is on our minds and talk to the people in rural America.”

Apparently others agree. While most Demands are coming from Columbus, Paducah and other rural towns of Western Kentucky, Dixon’s efforts to bring Edwards to the town on DailyKos diary posts and a Facebook group have resulted in supporters giving up their votes to bring them to their town and are advocating Edwards visit Columbus instead, according to comments.

With over two weeks left in the competition, Columbus still has a long way to go to maintain it’s lead over large metro areas. However, the grassroots movements created in small areas such as Columbus, KY, Eureka and Cocoa show that the Internet can be a powerful tool in making a voter’s voice heard and creating a dialogue between supporters and candidates.

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John Edwards Announces the Demand and Be Heard Competition

Posted by Jed on June 18, 2007 at 3:30 pm

TechPresident already blogged about it, but we figured we should say something about this:

John Edwards announced today that he will arrange a speaking event in the US city that can muster up the largest number of demanders between today and noon on July 18th.

Upon demanding him, each of his demanders has the opportunity to submit a question for the senator—he will choose at least ten questions from the winning city to answer at the event.

If you’re interested in having Edwards speak in your town, demand him at eventful.com/johnedwards and ask him a question!

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Candidates top college Demands

Posted by Alex on June 5, 2007 at 10:07 am

While most attention regarding Demand has gone to overall numbers and the groundswell of support for candidates like Obama and Paul on Eventful, little attention has been paid to an exciting feature I hope will be utilized more as the 2008 race unfolds.

Not only can a supporter Demand in their city, a recent Eventful feature allows college students to petition their candidate to their college campus. Even though most spring semesters have ended and students are off on vacation or working their summer jobs, students have been demanding their candidates come to their campus. Currently, Ron Paul, Barack Obama, and John Edwards hold the top 3 hottest college Demand positions, respectively, ahead of college-age favorite comedian Dane Cook.

Top campus grassroots activity comes from Michigan State University, with 127 Demands for Barack Obama to come to East Lansing, and 74 Demands for hometown candidate Ron Paul to make a trip to the University of Texas at Austin.

With the arrival of a new school year we hope to help bring the candidates to your campus and get students first hand interaction in the political process. And hey, fellow Wahoos, let’s get some Demands going at the University of Virginia!

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Video posted by Ron Paul, creates surge in Demands

Posted by Alex on May 30, 2007 at 8:16 am

To those who haven’t had a chance to view the video, you can see it here.

Ron Paul has posted the video on his website and YouTube channel. Since 9 last night, he has received 3,000 more people demanding him, and growing. The video has been viewed over 13,000 times.

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The Eventful Politics Project

Eventful’s Online Demand Data Reveals Obama and Huckabee Strong Ahead of Iowa Caucus

Road trip!

Edwards announces date for Columbus visit

Huckabee campaign uses Eventful to help organize events

Congrats Columbus, Kentucky

Eureka Smackdown!

Columbus, KY beating mighty Los Angeles in Edwards competition

John Edwards Announces the Demand and Be Heard Competition

Candidates top college Demands

Video posted by Ron Paul, creates surge in Demands

What we read: