HOME / net election: Tracking politics as it's practiced on the Web.

By the Numbers, Part 4

By James LedbetterPosted Friday, May 12, 2000, at 3:00 AM ET

Slate and the Industry Standard join forces to examine the effect of the Internet on Campaign 2000.

Judging from most Web indicators, interest in the presidential campaign has not picked up from the doldrums that followed John McCain's departure from the race. But the overlap between the Net and politics has not disappeared. We turn to the numbers once again to tell the real story.

1. Ratio of searches in the Lycos search engine during the first week in May for "Al Gore" to those for "Secretariat": 9 to 1

2. Ratio of Lycos searches for "Pat Buchanan" to "Secretariat": 2 to 3

3. Estimated loss in state and local sales tax revenues from the Internet tax moratorium in 1999: $525 million

4. Projected annual loss in state and local sales tax revenues from Internet tax moratorium in 2003: $20 billion

5. Hearings held by the House Judiciary Committee prior to recommending extension of Internet tax moratorium until October 2006: 0

6. Amount the George W. Bush campaign paid to Broadcast.com in February and March: $22,560

7. Number of Bush speeches available on Broadcast.com: 2

8. Amount the Al Gore campaign has paid to Broadcast.com: $0

9. Number of Gore speeches available on Broadcast.com: 3

10. Mentions of Elián González on George W. Bush's Web site, as of May 10: 22

11. Mentions of Elián González on Al Gore's Web site, as of May 10: 0

12. Unique visitors to Bush's Web site, entire month of April: 172,000

13. Unique visitors to Bush's Web site, single week ended March 4: 119,000

14. Books promoted on georgewbush.com: 1

15. Books promoted on the Ralph Nader for President Web site: 14

SOURCES

1-2 Lycos

3. Forrester Research

4. University of Tennessee study, state breakdown

5. Associated Press, May 4, 2000

6. FEC documents

7. Broadcast.com

8. Broadcast.com spokeswoman

9. Broadcast.com

10. Georgewbush.com

11. Algore2000.com

12-13 PC Data Online

14. Georgewbush.com

15. Votenader.com

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James Ledbetter is the editor of The Big Money, Slate's business site, which will launch later this year.
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