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Ron Paul Nation Did NOT Help Boost Kelly Clarkson Sales
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jan 6, 2012
Modified Jan 6, 2012
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jan 6, 2012
Modified Jan 6, 2012
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It seems that reports of the constitution-shaking power of the Ron Paul Nation have been greatly overestimated. Last week, Clarkson tweeted about her love for Ron Paul, pledging to vote for him if he wins the Republican presidential nomination. The Ron Paul Nation, who are nothing if not fiercely loyal, then began buying her album on iTunes and at Amazon, claiming to have boosted her album sales "by 600 percent.” But in reality, it seems they boosted her sales to the tune of a 40 percent sales drop.
Billboard crunched the numbers, and found that sales of Clarkson's recent Stronger album fell 40 percent during the week of her Ron Paulization from the previous holiday week. Altogether, the album sold 25,000 copies the week that ended Sunday January 1st, as opposed to 41,000 copies the week before Christmas. While it moved from No. 39 to No. 17 on the Billboard albums chart, Billboard notes "its upward momentum this week was caused by it having a less-steep decline in sales as compared to the rest of the titles on the chart (the overall album market was down 49 percent in the week after Christmas)."
But the album also did climb to the upper echelons of Apple’s iTunes Album Chart—that had to be because of loyal Paulpporters (Ron Paul supporters), right? Nope. Even though her album had a 232 percent sales increase in the digital space, Billboard believes that was thanks to iTunes heavily promoting both her sale-priced Stronger album and her new exclusive "iTunes Session" EP on the front page.
So now we have empirical evidence that the Ron Paul Bump is nowhere near as powerful as The Colbert Bump. Maybe it's because there are a lot of weird agendas all mixing together uncomfortably among The Ron Paul Nation—does it really make any sense why Paul's followers are vigorously attacking Jon Huntsman, who came in last at the Iowa caucuses and doesn't seem to have a chance at the White House, with racist attack ads now?
Tagged
kelly clarkson
libertarianism
Music
ron paul
ron paul nation
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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