A Tale of Two Women

After Day 1 of the Democratic Convention, the online buzz was a tale of two women. One is Barack Obama’s staunchest ally. The other … well, we’ll have to wait till tonight.

To get a sense how the online universe is reacting to 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.

Two of the sites looked back to Monday night, with Michelle Obama’s speech as the clear focal point. The most emailed story on Yahoo! News was “Michelle Keeps Things Down to Earth,” a Politico story praising “an awfully good speech” by the potential First Lady. A two-part video of that speech was the most watched YouTube clip, with numerous positive reviews mixed in with partisan bickering in the comments section.

“Michelle hit one out of the park,” declared one post on YouTube. “It brought tears to my eyes,” wrote another.

If the more democratically operated metrics of You Tube and Yahoo’s most emailed were focused on Michelle Obama’s speech, the more edited sites of Drudge and Huffington Post were focused on the idea of a Democratic party divided into Obama and Clinton camps. Their top headlines both looked ahead to Tuesday night, focusing on the anticipation and anxiety that will greet perhaps the most important speech in Clinton’s career.

“Day 2: Hillary Time,” was the HuffPost headline above the photo of a smiling, happy warrior Hillary. Drudge went more theatrical with the headline “Fasten Your Seatbelts, It’s Going To Be A Bumpy Night.” The choice of Bette Davis’ famous line from “All About Eve” is rife with implications. At a bare minimum, it posits Clinton as the convention’s drama queen.

For their part, the bloggers monitored by Technorati opted for substance over style and policy over pageantry. The most linked to story on Tuesday morning was a lengthy and wonkish New York Times magazine piece examining Obama’s “economic ideology.”

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

Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ