Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight comes up with some pretty interesting numbers for Sarah Palin, via search engines figures.Ms. Palin’s search traffic, since the start of 2010, is roughly 16 times that of Mitt Romney, 14 times that of Newt Gingrich, 38 times that of Mike Huckabee, and 87 times that of Mr. Pawlenty. (It is about six times greater than these other four candidates combined.)
Ms. Palin, in fact, draws almost as much search traffic worldwide as the man she would face if she wins the Republican nomination: Barack Obama. And her name is searched for about 30 percent more often than the President’s among Google users in the United States.
Whether people want to see what Sarah Palin is saying or doing or whether her critics want to find something to criticize or demonize her about, no matter, the fact is she is searched for relentlessly.
Palin's facebook releases, or tweets or interviews are talked about by all, conservative, moderate and liberal.
Silver concludes his piece:
Ms. Palin may not be the front-runner in a traditional sense (although it’s not clear that any of the other candidates are either). But she literally commands as much of the public’s attention as the President of the United States, and the strategy for the other candidates will have to revolve around her to some significant degree. In fact, since it is uncertain whether she will run or not, they will effectively have to develop two separate sets of strategies, one contingent upon the assumption that she will enter the race and the other on the bet that she won’t.
Whether she runs or not, once again we see Palin dominating the news from writers like Silver and Townhall's Mona Charen who lists reasons Palin should not run, yet the comment section of that piece is a perfect example of why if Palin did run, she would be a serious contender.
Love her or hate her, we search for her and much to the dismay of Palin haters, she is sticking around and her voice is being heard each and every day.
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