Net Election

By the Numbers

{{Industy Standard Gif#34651}} Slate and the Industry Standard join forces to examine the effect of the Internet on Campaign 2000.


{{Slate’s Political Roundup#73099}}

Politicians will tell you just about anything they think you want to hear. But this year’s real story beams through in numbers. Here’s our somewhat random, but awfully revealing number narrative. It says as much about those of us who surf the Net as it does about the politicians who crave our votes.

1. Rank of George W. Bush and Al Gore among presidential candidates’ names entered into Lycos’ search engine in January: 1, 2

2. Ratio of Lycos searches for Bush to those for television’s South Park: 1 to 10

3. Ratio of searches for Bush to those for actor-comedian Adam Sandler: 1 to 1

4. Ratio of searches for Gary Bauer to searches for the ill-fated Donner Party: 1 to 1

5. Alaskans eligible to vote by Internet in January GOP straw poll: 3,100

6. Alaskans who voted by Internet: 35

7. Mentions of the Internet in President Clinton’s State of the Union 2000 address: 6

8. Mentions in Clinton’s 1999 address: 2

9. Funds raised by Orrin Hatch’s campaign from all sources: $2.3 million

10. Funds raised through the Internet by John McCain’s campaign in the 48 hours after the New Hampshire primary: $1 million

11. Number of states whose residents have contributed less to Bill Bradley’s campaign than has come through the Internet (through Dec. 31,1999): 45

12. Date of the most recent press announcement on Hillary Clinton’s Web site (as of Feb. 8. 2000): Feb. 8, 2000

13. Date of the most recent press announcement on Rudy Giuliani’s Web site (as of Feb. 8, 2000): Oct. 21, 1999

14. Average number of minutes spent on first visit to Steve Forbes’ Web site: 13

15. Average number of minutes spent on visit to Forbes magazine’s Web site: 5

Sources:

1-4 http://50.lycos.com

5-6 http://www.votehere.net

7-8 Lexis-Nexis database search (http://www.lexis-nexis.com/)

9-11 Federal Election Commission records (http://www.fec.gov/)

12. http://www.hillary2000.org

13. http://www.rudyyes.com

14. Forbes campaign

15. Forbes magazine