So maybe Stephen Colbert’s “presidential run” was just a publicity stunt; an extended, glorified book plug (I’ll help him out– I Am America, And So Can You). For a brief week or so, I suspected he might have a grander scheme in mind.

Every year, The Daily Show people show up to the national conventions and run amuck. I believed this was an attempt to up the ante–to actually have an official candidate on stage to help take satire to a whole new level. I also believed Colbert might announce his retirement as a “pundit” after his inevitable flame-out. It would be the perfect exit strategy.

Well, I was wrong, obviously.

But then again, who knows how it would have turned out if the South Carolina Democratic officials had voted differently, or if the writers’ strike hadn’t occurred at exactly the wrong time.

Regardless, Colbert’s brief time in the media’s political spotlight made for a much more interesting and slightly surreal couple weeks in the political blogosphere. It was funny as hell to read respected political commentators and online publications talk themselves into accepting a basic cable late-night comedian as a viable presidential candidate. They investigated the legal precedents, and tried to quantify and analyze the effects he’d have on the race and the other “real” candidates. But really, how could you consider Colbert any less “real” than the wild-eyed and vaguely terrifying Mike Gravel, or Tom Tancredo, who in one early debate asserted that he wouldn’t rest until he didn’t have to press 1 for English, and 2 for Spanish when calling customer service. And kooky, cuddly Kucinich–the man once stood on a balcony with Shirley MacLaine, watched a triangular UFO split open the sky like a sheet, and it gave him “directions in his mind.”

It’s no surprise then that in a national poll, Colbert was favored higher than both Kucinich and Gravel (as well as Bill Richardson–another avid UFO enthusiast). What was a bit surprising was when I took a look at blog mentions of each of the Democratic candidates across a wide range of political blogs, the amount of mentions of each candidate was almost identical to their poll positions:

Republican polling firm “Public Opinion Strategies” conducted a national poll on Oct. 18-21 of 1000 likely 2008 voters:

“In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote — good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent. Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).”

Is this congruence between the poll and online buzz a lucky coincidence, or does polling match social media buzz? Perhaps it’s one of several incidents in which online chatter mirrors real-life buzz. However, this POS poll does seem to be blanketed by a thin layer of Truthiness. Inexplicably, the numbers only add up to around 80 percent with no explanation–and I refuse to believe that MIA Chris Dodd has more votes than Obama. In my opinion, other polls on the issue used vague, somewhat-truthy wording to get a good lead.

Colbert’s presidential run, though obviously tongue-in-cheek, fizzled out before it had a chance to truly shine; but for a while it did help illuminate how bizarre and unreal politics can sometimes be. Oh right, and his book is currently number 8 on Amazon.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Mass Media/Culture //