MySpace poll

29 October 2006 |permalink | email article

Forget the 68 election polls Karl Rove claims to read each day, or that he alone knows Republicans will retain control of the House and Senate on Nov.7.

Turns out some politicians and their supporters, perhaps unintentionally, have subjected themselves to a MySpace cyber straw poll. Each person’s page tracks how many people list themselves as “friends.”

The New York Times reported results of an informal survey last week:

Sen. Barack Obama: 14,995 friends

Sen. Hillary Clinton: 12,880 friends

Sen. George Allen: 232 friends

Senate candidate Jim Webb: 1,785 friends

Kinky Friedman. Independent candidate for Texas governor: 33,173 friends

MySpace is not a serious forecast of the popular vote. But there’s a hint, even here, that voters hunger for new leadership in Washington and elsewhere.

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