How the Campaigns Add Up
A paint-by-numbers portrait of the presidential election campaigns in 2000.
Slate and the Industry Standard join forces to examine the effect of the Internet on Campaign 2000.
Politicians will tell you just about anything they think you want to hear. As both Democrats and Republicans prefer to choose sides in a Cuban family soap opera rather than debate real issues, we call on the numbers once again for the real political story.
1. Ratio of searches on the Lycos search engine for "George Bush" to those for the TV show Days of Our Lives, week ending April 22: 1 to 1
2. Ratio of searches on Lycos for "Al Gore" to those for the TV show Rugrats, week ending April 22: 1 to 1
3. Ratio of searches on Lycos for "Pat Buchanan" to those for the TV show All in the Family, week ending April 22: 1 to 1
4. Period of time between the launch of the gwbush.com parody site and a letter of complaint about the site sent by Bush campaign to the Federal Election Commission: 1 month
5. Period of time it took the FEC to reject the Bush campaign's complaint: 11 months
6. Months that the U.S. Supreme Court has had its own Web site: 1
7. Months that the Mongolian Supreme Court has had its own Web site: 24
8. Date the George W. Bush Web site issued a statement criticizing the April 22 Elián González raid—April 22
9. Number of days it took the Al Gore Web site to issue any statement on the Elián González raid: still counting
Matthew Yeomans has covered everything from the dot-com bust to the global oil boom. Today, he is founder of Custom Communication, providing social media strategy and branded content for companies.
