World

What the web thinks about politicians

June 29, 2008
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Barack Obama's ability to raise money from literally millions of supporters online has already, and justifiably, attained the status of legend: it's the kind of watershed in campaigning that only comes along once in a generation. Despite all the coverage, however, I hadn't quite realised how impressive his online edge over Hillary Clinton has been over the last twelve months until I typed both their names into google trends. The result, which portrays as a graph the number of times each of their names has been entered into google as a search term, can be seen here.

Then again, if all Hillary's supporters could spell, we might have seen something rather different...

Obviously, the Democratic primary contest has hogged the bulk of the US news cycle. Still, google's current Obama/McCain match-up must be of concern to Republicans: it shows a worse-than two-to-one deficit online. George Bush, meanwhile and predictably enough, trails both candidates. And don't even ask about Gordon Brown, who as far as the internet is concerned has barely crept ahead of a certain predecessor even after a year in power.

Here's a challenge, though. Can you think of another politican who might rival Obama in the google stakes; or is he truly the world's most sought-after political figure? Come to think of it, is there someone else whom Obama-mania may be toppling from even His lofty perch?