Saturday, July 16, 2011

Can Republicans Break Through the Debt Ceiling?

It's time for my bimonthly count of Facebook friends for Republicans getting in line to take on Barack Obama. I almost didn't notice, with the debt ceiling debate going on in Washington and none of these would-be contenders having a seat at that table.

The Democrats added over 1.6 million friends in the last 2 months, while all Republicans combined added only .9 million. If you take out Sarah Palin's 3.2 million friends and the 1.7 million friends for candidates from Mike Huckabee to Jeb Bush on the cross-out list, Facebook friends of Obama-Biden outnumber friends of the Republican field 7.7 to 1. With them, they are still outnumbered 2.8 to 1.

CandidateFriends on 1/16/2011Friends on 3/16/2011Friends on 5/16/2011Friends on 7/16/2011
Barack Obama17,822,15218,632,33120,413,24522,038,067
Joe Biden271,971274,670282,433299,388
     
Sarah Palin2,606,5862,777,5092,957,6273,191,711
Mitt Romney751,391814,705899,0551,041,454
Michele Bachmann150,467187,433258,370
422,366
Ron Paul307,493307,495356,452
419,099
Herman Cain42,28955,72090,146149,820
Jim DeMint127,177129,848133,363
143,436
Newt Gingrich100,489113,269131,779
142,281
Gary Johnson-110,466114,000129,275
Tim Pawlenty69,98573,13586,907
103,337
Rick Perry51,45552,18052,85470,425
Allen West--64,05767,330
Scott Walker-61,52763,12964,621
Mike Pence45,92347,71248,54248,893
Rick Santorum12,21113,25216,22123,482
Thaddeus McCotter--9,90911,812
Peter King--11,23211,525
Jon Huntsman-1,5552,2809,347
Jimmy McMillan-8,3628,6759,141
Roy Moore--708,235
John Bolton5,1705,6586,0566,354
Rudy Giuliani1,8912,1942,5353,211
Fred Karger6818261,4582,117
Buddy Roemer-5701,4961,806
Jon Greenspon581584583583
Andy Martin--560570
Jonathon Sharkey--159170
     
Mike Huckabee522,079541,409586,020
647,376
Donald Trump146,866184,512272,108300,401
Scott Brown--237,462239,086
Rand Paul-105,001117,287137,580
Bobby Jindal121,977122,353125,614
129,824
Paul Ryan50,90856,49671,923
79,181
John Thune74,75474,83775,21175,442
Mitch Daniels39,41344,52849,90850,614
Chris Christie29,38833,99036,53642,563
Mike Bloomberg29,86230,34431,31632,879
Haley Barbour16,85417,45918,16818,604
Jeb Bush4,8415,0275,3005,556
     
Total Obama-Biden Friends18,094,123
18,907,00120,695,67822,337,455
Total Republican Friends5,310,731
5,979,9516,944,3687,841,507

I have crossed out a number of candidates who have been insisting they are not running despite speculation to the contrary. It's time to take them at their word. But I haven't closed the field to only those who have declared since we are still waiting to hear from Sarah Palin.

Michele Bachman has moved past Ron Paul into second place among declared candidates, and joins Mitt Romney in the shadow of The Undeclared Sarah Palin.

Herman Cain has moved up three spots and now leads the chase pack. Tim Pawlenty has fallen solidly into last place in the chase pack. Still we can't taken any of these guys seriously until they collect more friends than Joe Biden to cross the Biden line.

Thadeous McCotter moved up a notch on the strength of his official announcement, but not high enough to want us to start calling him Thad.

Jon "The Other Mormon" Huntsman has just barely crossed the Jimmy "The Rent is Too Damn High" McMillan Line. Alabama Judge Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore is just below it. That tells you all you need to know about all three of these fringe candidates.

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