by Jim Tankersley
The voters have spoken! Well, not in Iowa yet – you’ve got a half-day of waiting for that still – but in the virtual world of social networking.
The inaugural “MySpace” primary, a two-day online vote that drew 150,000 users of the popular Web site, crowned Sen. Barack Obama the Democratic winner and Rep. Ron Paul the runaway Republican choice.
Obama, whom the Swamp dubbed the “absolute King of Facebook” earlier this year, scored 46 percent of the Democratic vote, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton at 31 percent and former Sen. John Edwards with 8 percent.
Paul, an internet phenom who has shattered online fundraising records this year despite his single-digit standings in national polls, took 37 percent of the GOP vote. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani followed with 18 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had 16 percent.
Don’t expect candidates to put too much stock in those numbers, because a) they represent a national electorate and b) voting was open to all MySpace users, which presumably includes teens not yet eligible to vote in actual elections. Still, MySpace’s exit polls – yep – report that the average voter was 29 years old. Eighty-three percent of participants said they planned to vote in a state primary and 91 percent said they would vote in November.
For the uninitiated: MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites allow users to post information about themselves, message with friends and create their own virtual communities. MySpace dove into presidential politics this year by sponsoring a series of candidate forums in conjunction with MTV, and by hosting the online vote Jan. 1 and 2.
“MySpace is proud to be kicking off the New Year by actively engaging millions of Americans in the political process through our first virtual presidential primary,” Jeff Berman, SVP of Public Affairs for MySpace, said in a press release. “The MySpace Generation has spoken and we’re eager to see how the candidates will court this important voting demographic.”———————————————————————————————–
Have questions about the results of tonight’s Iowa caucuses, what’s next in the race for the White House or anything related to Election 2008? E-mail them to us More Top Picks Honeywell Home Rth2300b 5 2 Day Programmable