InTheCapital

By Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel

I came across this extremely ridiculous Newsweek cover and brushed it off as part of the photoshopped meme-ery that makes Tumblr so great. But after checking it out, it would appear this is actually Newsweek’s chosen cover image. For real. I weep for journalism.

…Also, I’m well-aware my choosing to write about this and feature the image only validates their decision to run this cover..it’s just…well…ughh…You win, Newsweek. You win. It is…kinda…cool.

..Also of note: It’s our 200th pre-launch post! Come celebrate with us as we move into our fancy new cyber digs on Wednesday! 

By Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel

The whirling dervish that is the 2012 Republican nomination blew down the east cost from New Hampshire to South Carolina like a tornado. Not everyone survived. We lost two candidates in the process and what seemed like a sure thing for Mitt, is now in question after Gingrich’s decisive win in S.C. The whole thing took us by surprise, but the all-seeing eyes of Facebook saw it coming the whole time. Those sneaky bastards.

Thanks to the fine folks at the Alexandria-based OhMyGov, we can see exactly how momentum built for Gingrich as tracked by Facebook fans. Turns out that even after 245,563 debates, when the candidates speak, the people are still listening. Check out the following charts below.

Romney’s Facebook fans left him in DROVES after his January 16th debate. While he was in a Facebook freefall, Gingrich continued to creep up in the polls, finally rising sharply after lashing out at CNN’s John King, after his ex-wife’s ABC interview. We have the video of Newt’s corpulent ire right here…

Personally, we’re pretty surprised at how fickle Facebook ‘fans’ are—jumping ship on Mitt during and immediately after the debate. This falls pretty much in line though with the tepid response Republicans have had for this field of candidates this year. Voters are easily swayed, more likely to swing from candidate to candidate.

There is, of course, an exception to the rule—Ron Paul, who boasts an extremely devout following. 

We have to keep in mind that this is but one small metric to consider…it’s just Facebook, right? Well, yes and no. Sure, Facebook is one platform and anyone has access to be Mitt Romney’s fan on Facebook—not just legal voters or even US citizens. But it has been noted before that Facebook users don’t shy away from their true feelings on the social network. We might be seeing more and more that as Facebook users go, so goes the country. We’re not there yet, but there’s no question it is a trend to monitor.

these smiles are totally fake

By Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel

The 2012 Presidential campaign was absolutely BANANAS today. Rick Perry dropped out (oooh!). Newt Gingrich’s ex is planning to spill the grisly detailsof his marriage (squeals with excitement). Mitt Romney is in hot water about his tax returns. And, wouldn’t you know it, Iowa reverses their winner of the caucuses (grips desk to keep from fainting).

Oh yeah, and did we mention that Steven Colbert is holding a joint rally tomorrow at 1pm at the college of Charleston with the event title of, “THE ROCK ME LIKE A HERMAN CAIN: SOUTH CAIN-OLINA PRIMARY RALLY” (head explodes).

Okay, so we may be going overboard slightly…but can you blame us…we likethis stuff. Don’t be fooled, though, we are all about the casual political bystander. That’s why, with the final South Carolina Primary debate coming tonight and the actual primary on Saturday, we have compiled a list of people to follow to keep ya up to date with the twists and turns in the race. The list is below.

As always, you can follow my personally curated politics list, here. I highly recommend it if you enjoy being ruthlessly bombarded for hours by 100s of the rabid political Twitterati (I know, sounds great, right?) 

@PeterHambyCNN - Peter Hamby, CNN Political Reporter who broke the news today on Rick Perry’s dropping out of the race. He’s a younger guy and a tenacious reporter.

@BuzzFeedBen - Ben Smith, Buzzfeed Editor in Chief who is an absolute monster tweeter. Follow at own risk as he tweets and retweets anything and everything relevant. You will be informed, though.

@AliNBCNews - Ali Weinberg, NBC Campaign embedded reporter who has been down in South Carolina for months. She knows the scene on the ground and can provide some great insights. She’s also one of the nicest people you’ll meet…if that means anything.

@StephenAtHome - Stephen Colbert, comedian and tv host who is sort of running for president in South Carolina…and sort of getting 5% of the vote…and sort of hosting a rally with former Republican Presidential candidate, Herman Cain. Wow. I can’t believe I actually typed that and it wasn’t a joke. Stunned.

@chucktodd - Chuck Todd, NBC chief Political Director. He’s the most savvy political analyst out there. His twitter handle is an asset to anyone who cares about this politics stuff.

@fivethirtyeight - Nate Silver of the New York Times does great, witty, and digestible analysis of all the polling and stats that come out of the campaigns. He’ll tell you in real-time what Newt’s odds are of winning in S.C. before AND after Newt’s ex spills all the gory details of their relationship. a good follow, indeed.

@TheFix - Chris Cillizza, Politics Guru at the Washington Post. He’s funny, smart, humble, and a prolific debate tweeter. I highly suggest this as one of your follows.

Some of the Locals, Too

@bszobody: Ben Szobody, Greenville News reporter

@jimdavenport_ap: Jim Davenport, SC-based AP political reporter

By Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel

If you can dodge a question, you can dodge a…well, you get the reference. Last night’s debate was a feisty one for sure as the candidates did their best to pile on Mitt Romney while us armchair quarterbacks at home quietly judged their every word. Thanks to Twitter’s partnership with Fox News last evening and some fancy charts from Mass Relevance, we can see just how well the candidates did or didn’t answer the questions posed to them by last night’s moderaters. It’s real straightforward: folks at home used the hashtag #answer or #dodge last night during a candidate’s response to see just how slippery these ‘suits’ can be.

Newt 

Newt is known for being nasty and direct. He had to be on the offensive last night against our favorite robot-candidate, Barbour coat spokesman, Mitt Romney. For the most part, Newt did answer questions directly…except, of course, when confronted about attacking Romney early on. 

Romney

While Mitt’s graph looks all too much like the financial charts we’ve grown used to during the recession, it essentially shows Mitt on the defensive, bobbing and weaving from anything that could derail his war of attrition against the rest of the field.

Here’s what Twitter noted about the ‘other’ candidates:

Rick Perry’s biggest Twitter reaction came right at the end of the debate, as Twitter users rewarded him by noting #answer for his response to a question on immigration.

Users tweeted that Rick Santorum’s biggest #dodge of the night was in his answers to questions on gun control, but they applauded his answers on employment.

Ron Paul saw his most significant number of #dodge votes in answers around foreign policy.

Of course, we need to ask: what, if anything, did we learn from this?

1) Charts are just the best. Seriously, information repackaged into charts is just…(does that thing where you kiss your fingers and say, ‘mwah’ like a stereotypical italian chef. Loosely translates to ‘perfection’.)

2.) Candidates will always dodge questions that have unfavorable answers. Mitt as the front-runner is way more likely to dodge as well as answer tepidly. This has been his tactic all along, rarely being too slimy while also remaining…well, bland and letting the rest of the field quietly murder itself.

3.) All this is well and good, but Mitt is the frontrunner barring any colossal missteps. Voters are used to the dips, dodges, ducks, and dives of Presidential hopefuls—it comes with the territory. Mitt’s gonna need more than a few downward sloping graphs to stop this train.