I've seen many Google search result statistics articles around the Web, but I couldn't find one about the Presidential race. This is one of my favorite games, so I decided to give it a shot, and created
Google the Vote (a play on MTV's "Rock the Vote") with questions ranging from issues of trust to likability. Each question is formed by adding the candidate's name into a simple phrase. For example, "Barack Obama as President" or "I can trust John McCain" (note that those aren't really the phrases used, as I don't want my blog to have an impact.
We then search for those phrases as exact matches on Google and take Google's estimated number of results. Only in one case do we get no results. I've found a number of things using this approach:
- Obama's results relating to trust have been declining
- McCain's basic Presidential search has been suffering a losing and widening gap with Barack Obama
- Neither candidate appears to be expected to balance the budget, though Obama simply has no results at all on this search!
- Both candidates may "feel the love" of their supporters, but Obama's supporters are quite a bit more vocal about it
I hope you enjoy this. I know I've enjoyed putting it together.
