The Colbert Report "Bump" Is Real

The Colbert Report is one of the funniest shows on television. The host, Stephen Colbert, does a dead-on comedy impression of a right-wing television commentator (like Bill O'Reilly, who he calls "Pappa Bear"). The show has made Colbert something of a minor hero among liberals and young people.

Even though it is a comedy show, it has drawn many politicians of both parties as guests (including most of the presidential candidates). Back in 2006, a candidate running for congress, Jon Hall, appeared on the show. Soon after, he defeated the incumbant congresswoman he was running against.

Since then, it has been a running joke on the show that any politician that appears on the show gets a bump in the ratings. It has come to be known as the "Colbert Report Bump". As strange as it seems, it now looks like the "Colbert Report Bump" may be more than a running joke -- it may actually be real.

A political scientist (James Fowler of the University of California at San Diego) decided to test the premise. He picked campaign contributions as the measurement since that is a tangible result that can be measured. To insure fairness, he only compared Republicans to Republicans and Democrats to Democrats. He compared contributions before and after an appearance against contributions of candidates who did not appear.

Fowler found that there is statistically significant bump among candidates that appeared on the show, but the bump is very party specific. Democrats who appeared on the show had about a 44% rise in contributions after the appearance. However, Republicans showed no rise in contributions or a small decrease.

Why the difference between the parties? Is it because the show has a mostly liberal audience? Probably not -- the show is only seen by about 1.5 million people and that's not enough to account for the large bump. Fowler does point out though that an appearance on the show is viewed as a news event by the major media outlets, and they broadcast parts of the appearance to 30-50 million viewers.

Fowler believes it relates to the candidates themselves, since they must decide to appear on the show or not. He believes that the only Republicans that appear are those who are already doing well with their campaigns, while even unknown Democrats view an appearance as an opportunity.

I think the reason may be even simpler. I believe Democrats see a candidate's appearance as someone who is willing to poke fun at himself and as someone who can take a joke. While Republicans see a candidate's appearance as sort of collaborating with "the enemy".

Whatever the reason, the bump seems to be real. Fowler will be publishing his study in an upcoming issue of PS: Poiltical Science and Politics.