It turns out that the volume and character of spam can offer a kind of twisted view into the zeitgeist of this election season.This week was notable for a number of reasons. First, both presidential candidates hit the road with their newly anointed VP nominees. Second, both parties paused and then re-ignited their campaigns as part of their observance of 911. What can peering into the SPAMiverse tell us about all of this?
Biden is irrelevant
Of the roughly 40 thousand pieces of spam the referenced one or more of the nominees during the week of September 6th, only 4% of the traffic referenced Biden in any way. Whether the email was genuinely political in nature, positive or negative, or simply tried to hijack their recognition to push a casino or a knock-off watch, 96% of the spam made no mention of Biden (Palin was mentioned 5 times more often!).
McCain and Palin get equal billing
McCain barely gets more attention than his running mate, Palin.
Obama is no celebrity
While Obama gets the lion’s share of spammers’ attention, the combined republican ticket get 43% more referencesthan their democratic rivals.
Political Campaigns dominate political spam
While there are plenty of sleazy spammers trying to capitalize on the election season, there is one trend that is hard to ascribe to typical spammers pushing casinos and mail order prescriptions – the 911 pause.
911 Pause
A breakout of the volume of spam by day shows a curious pattern between September 9th and September 12th.
On September 11th, spam email for each of the candidates plummeted by between 36% and as much as 57% for Palin. This was probably not a coincidence, because the email blasts rebounded again with spammer references more than making up for the one day pause. It is notable that McCain has an extended grace period – his spam volume only climbed 9% versus Palin who spiked by over 100%.
