Dear GOP Candidates, Come Get Me

As I noted last week, I've been officially "undecided" about who I'm supporting in the Republican presidential primary for a few weeks. 

Everyone has a 9-9-9 Plan!

Herman Cain isn't the only one with a 9-9-9 Plan:

[Hat tip: Crooks and Liars blog]

See the original 9-9-9 Plan here!

The Las Vegas Debate aka Conservative Slap Fight

Well, that was entertaining.

The Republican presidential candidates met in Las Vegas last night for the latest debate. As appropriate for the location, it was a wild evening with some of the nastiest fights ever between the candidates yet and even an appearance by Wayne Newton.

I've got the Twitter trending topics (from right after the debate ended) for you, and then some random little thoughts about the debate itself:

#StandWithRubio - GOP Candidates Announce Boycott of Univision Debate

Que imbecilidad

Spanish-language TV station Univision learned a lesson today about the limits of their influence.

After the story broke that Univision had released an embarrassing twenty year old story about Senator Marco Rubio's brother-in-law, allegedly in retaliation for Rubio's refusal to appear on the liberal Al Punto show (Shark Tank has a good write up here), three Hispanic Republican leaders - Congressman David Rivera, Florida House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera, and Miami-Dade County Republican Party Chairman Erik Fresen - sent letters to the Republican National Committee and the Republican presidential campaigns.

The candidates responded in an avalanche today, with Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, and Michele Bachmann all announcing that they would boycott a Univision-hosted debate unless the station made amends with Rubio.

Twitter Analysis of the Ames Debate

During the last GOP Presidential debate in June, I did an analysis of the trending topics on Twitter immediately afterwards and got a lot of positive responses.

So, back by popular demand, here's another city-by-city analysis of what everyone was tweeting about the debate in Ames, Iowa tonight. One thing is immediately clear: there were a lot fewer debate-related trending topics than when I did this analysis in June. Not sure if there were less overall tweets, or if an election that's still more than a year away was overshadowed by the controversy about whether Bert and Ernie should get married (Yes, "Bert and Ernie" is a trending topic in many cities tonight, and yes this is a real issue. I wish I were kidding.) but the Ames debate was definitely less of a presence on the trending topics lists tonight.

Anyway, here's your trending topics (if a city is not listed, then it did not have any debate-related trending topics):

Overall United States: T-Paw

Atlanta: Ron Paul

Austin: #GOPdebate
Boston: Mitt Romney
Chicago: Ron Paul
Dallas-Ft. Worth: Ron Paul   Rick Perry
Denver: Ron Paul
Houston: Rick Perry   Ron Paul
Los Angeles: Rick Santorum   Mitt Romney
Minneapolis: Ron Paul
Nashville: Ron Paul
New York: #GOPdebate   Mitt Romney   Santorum
Orlando: Rick Perry
Phoenix: Rick Perry
San Antonio: Rick Perry
San Francisco: Mitt Romney
Seattle: Mitt Romney
Tampa: Rick Perry
Washington: #gopdebate   Rick Santorum   T-Paw   Jon Huntsman

The important thing to remember is that the presence of a name on the trending topics list does not necessarily equal support. All it means is that people were talking about that candidate. In the case of Ron Paul, the overwhelming number of responses I saw were extremely negative. Paul's rabid fans don't like to admit it, but his foreign policy is just way, way out of the Republican mainstream and he has no chance of winning the primary.

Someone Tell Ron Paul that Iran is a threat because their leaders are even Crazier than he is #amesdebate #GOPdebate #iowadebateFri Aug 12 02:23:15 via TweetDeckJeff Dunetz
yidwithlid

 

Ron Paul would be great for the economy, but unfortunately, we'd be blown up by a nuclear Iran before we got to enjoy it. #amesdebateFri Aug 12 02:16:35 via TweetDeckPrudence Paine
PruPaine

The presence of Rick Perry on so many cities' lists is very interesting, considering that he was not even in Iowa tonight and has not officially declared his candidacy yet (although rumors say he will do so on Saturday at the RedState Gathering in Charleston, SC). Perry was definitely the "elephant" in the room. (Ha ha...get it? Elephant, like the Republican mascot? Sometimes I just crack myself up.) Michele Bachmann had a great answer to Bret Baier's question about Perry, saying there was room for Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and even Bret himself if he wanted to get in...but the reality is that many of the candidates on the stage tonight know that if when Perry enters the race, their chances of victory will drop significantly.

In other news. Rick Perry is looking great. #amesdebateFri Aug 12 02:39:33 via Twitter for iPhoneAndrew Staroska
OHCONSERVATISM

I'll post some more thoughts about the debate later if I get a chance, but wanted to get this posted. What did you think about the debate? Were you following on Twitter? Who do you think won the debate? Leave a note in the comments!

Why you should register your domain name

If you have even the teeny-tiniest inclination that you may want to run for office someday, and you haven't registered your own name as a website address ("FirstnameLastname.com," etc.), then you're a blooming idiot.

Further proof of my theory that you really can find anything on the internet

Once your name becomes even slightly recognizable, it's too late and someone will quickly capitalize on your delay. There's no excuse - registering a domain name takes just a few minutes and costs about $10.00.

The latest person to learn this painful lesson is former Utah Governor and newly-declared Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. Huntsman has registered "www.jonhuntsmanjr.com" for his campaign.

Why jonhuntsmanjr.com? Well, it turns out that www.jonhuntsman.com was already taken...and, ouch, it's not very helpful to Huntsman's presidential ambitions.

Whoever created the site (the whois domain registration is set to private) has posted a letter from Huntsman to Obama (click image to enlarge):

Adding to the zing of this love letter to Obama is the pink heart background and this cutesy little logo, making a heart out of Obama's "O" logo:

Adorable, right? Heh.

Not the best friend to have in a Republican primary...

...just ask Charlie Crist.

What's not so adorable for Huntman's campaign is his poor internet presence. Most people, when searching for a candidate will type in "JohnDoe.com" and then if that doesn't work, run an internet search. Well, today, within hours of Huntsman's press conference officially announcing his candidacy, here's the top search results on Google for "jon huntsman:"

1. The "Jon Huntsman, Jr." Wikipedia page
2. A TIME article that's over a month old
3. A Daily Beast article that's nearly two months old
4. Erick Erickson's RedState article titled "Why I will not support Jon Huntman. Ever."
5. An Economist article titled "Jon Huntsman: The perils of hype"
6. The website for the current Utah Governor, Gary Herbert
7. An ABC News article about today's campaign announcement
8. www.jonhuntsmanjr.com

So his official website barely cracks the Top 10, the top two articles are old and losing relevance by the day, and the next two are negative. Yeah, whoever is managing search engine optimization for this campaign needs to put in some overtime this week.

(Hat tip re the jonhuntsman.com valentine site to @NoahPollak and @JonahNRO)

[Cross-posted at The Minority Report Blog and Indie Politics]