Net Election

By the Numbers, Part 2

{{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 a follow-up to our first 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. Ratio of requests for Texas Gov. George W. Bush entered into the Lycos search engine in January to those for the Bible: 1 to 8

2. Ratio of Lycos searches for Arizona Sen. John McCain to those for Bush during the first week in February: 2 to 1

3. Ratio of Lycos searches for Alan Keyes to those for Bo Derek: 1 to 1

4. Seconds necessary to load a page of Bush’s Web site: 3.53

5. Seconds necessary to load a page of Steve Forbes’ Web site: 14.56

6. Average number of minutes spent on Vice President Al Gore’s Web site per visit: 25

7. Average number of minutes spent on the New York Times Web site per month: 21.6

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

9. Number of states whose residents have contributed less to Bill Bradley’s campaign than has come through the Internet (for month of January 2000): 50

10. Number of major presidential Web sites running on a Sun Solaris platform: 4

11. Number of major presidential Web sites running on a Linux platform: 1 (Gore)

12. Unique visitors to Gore’s Web site on average day, according to Gore campaign: 12,000 to 15,000

13. Unique visitors to Gore’s Web site for week ended Feb. 19, according to PC Data Online: 10,000

14. Funds raised by McCain campaign from all sources during January: $2.5 million

15. Funds raised by McCain campaign through Internet since Feb. 1: $3.5 million

Sources:

1-3 http://50.lycos.com/

4-5 Keynote Systems study

6. Gore campaign

7. http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo/audience.html

8-9 Federal Election Commission filings (http://www.fec.gov/)

10-11 Keynote Systems study

12. Gore campaign

13. PC Data Online

14. Federal Election Commission filings

15. McCain campaign