Convention Buzz Detector -- Democrats Day 2

How Did Hillary Do?

Several distinctly different responses to Hillary Clinton’s prime-time speech dominated the online universe after the second night of the Democratic National Convention.

To get a sense of the online buzz during the conventions, PEJ is monitoring five online destinations each morning at 9 a.m. The sample includes the top political headline on the Drudge Report, top political headline on the Huffington Post, the political story most linked to by bloggers in the previous 48 hours, according to the blog aggregating site Technorati, the most emailed political story on Yahoo! News, and the most viewed political video on YouTube.

The most positive assessment came from the liberal blog, the Huffington Post, which portrayed Clinton’s unity address a smashing success. “Hillary Delivers…And Then Some …” declared the big headline, surrounded by sub-headlines like “Turning Point of Convention” and “Dems United.”

A different reaction was conveyed on Technorati’s most linked-to item, a video clip of a CNN interview with former Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, who hammered home the main GOP talking point. “She never answered the big question,” he said. “The claim she made during the primaries was [Obama] wasn’t prepared to be president of the United States. She never said that [he was prepared.]”

The most emailed political story on Yahoo! News was one that did not include any partisan framing of the speech. It was a no-frills Associated Press transcript of the former First Lady’s remarks.

YouTube, the other online metric driven primarily by public preference, also offered an unmediated look at the convention—although it wasn’t about Clinton. Far and away, the most popular video on Wednesday was Michelle Obama’s Monday night speech. (One excerpt alone generated almost 340,000 views and almost 500 comments.)

For its part, the right-leaning Drudge Report chose to focus on possible discord in Denver. “CNN: Clinton To Skip Obama’s Big Speech,” blared the headline citing a report that the former President would not attend the nominee’s Thursday night address. For Democrats hoping for healing after Hillary’s speech, that suggested half the Clinton team was not quite ready to sing kumbaya.

PEJ will continue the Convention Buzz Detector throughout both the Democratic and Republican gatherings.

Read Buzz Detector Day 1

Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ