Okay, so it may not be as “important” as a candidate’s plan to get out of Iraq or revamping social security; but as any MySpace member can tell you, there are way better measures of success than your “qualifications” and “abilities”–like, how popular you are. Here’s what we mean. Most polls show Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead over Barack Obama. But that number is pretty meaningless when you consider that 44,445 people count Obama as a MySpace friend, while only 23,667 count Hillary as a pal, according to TechPresident.com, which tracks web coverage of the presidential campaign. On the GOP side, John McCain (1,369 MySpace friends) and Rudy Giuliani (651 MySpace friends) are always listed as the early GOP frontrunners. But Mitt Romney has the edge on both, with his 1,405 Myspace buddies. Even so, all three of the Republican candidates together don’t have anywhere near as many friends as Obama. Experts say that’s because they are nowhere near as cool.
In other words, if the election were held today, and all the voting booths were on MySpace, Obama would totally be president. But Republicans shouldn’t give up just yet. Apparently–and this gets kind of technical so we’re simplifying a bit–listing someone as a MySpace friend doesn’t count as an actual vote for that candidate on election day. “Friending is still a bit of a murky phenomenon. It’s a pretty trivial kind of association and I’d never say we should take it as any proof of what will happen as far as voter turnout,” techPresident editor Micah Sifry told NEWSWEEK. Well, yeah. But it’s still cool to be voted “most likely to become president” even if you wind up a total loser.
