According to research conducted by PeekScore, an innovative application that ranks individuals’ online prominence, we can now elect Arizona’s Republican John McCain as the top most prominent Senate candidate on the Internet. 

PeekScore has carefully researched the size of the online footprint of all 2010 U.S. Senate candidates for this midterm election, and ranked the top candidates on the Web. This list reveals who the candidates are to lead across all social media platforms, blog and websites while revealing political trends in this year’s elections.

PeekScore’s interesting findings include:

· Democrats are leading the online race as only four Republicans made it to the top ten.

· While California’s Carly Fiorina is the #2 candidate on PeekScore’s list, a large majority of Web savvy candidates are men. 

Below please find the top 10 most active U.S. Senate candidates on the Web:

Top US Senate Candidates on the Web – Elections 2010

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All things considered, this is not shocking.  Republican candidates have gained a significant amount of traction online, thanks to the Tea Party movement, as Kristen Nicole cited in an earlier article, and Lisa De Pasquale of the American Conservative Union also says of the trend:

“Conservative organizations and candidates no longer have the luxury of thinking social media is optional.  Activists expect to be able to reach out to leaders and have one-on-one interaction with them and their staff.  If leaders want to replicate the success of entertainers involved with social media, they must provide unique content and interact with fans.  Conservatives are energized and willing to work for any cause or candidate that respects their time and involvement.”

This story might be even more poignant if McCain weren’t at the top, but we still have to look at it and parse it honestly

As a conservative activist myself, I will say that this is all well and good, and as stated above this trend is to be expected. But, in reality, is anybody at all surprised that John McCain (R-Media) tops the list of GOP candidates with a strong online presence?  Senator McCain never met a camera or a microphone he didn’t like, so it seems only logical that he would go all-out with on online campaign.  He can ham up to vast numbers of people at very little cost, which feeds his ego.  Also, McCain can parlay a large online effort into a counter-argument against the ill-informed tech crowd who occasionally posited that his inability to use a computer somehow hindered his ability to be president.

Trust me when I tell you that there are several characteristics about Senator McCain that would hinder his ability to be Commander-in-Chief, but his inability to spend all day vanity searching himself of Google isn’t one of them.

All of that aside, here’s the dirty little secret:

John McCain doesn’t really need an online campaign to win.  He’s been around so long that name recognition among the American people is not an issue for him.  The only thing older than Senator McCain in Washington DC is the White House, and when you think about it, he’s probably done more “Sunday Shows” than Jimmy Swaggart.  When you couple that with the fact that he ran against Barack Obama for the presidency in 2008 undoubtedly raised his name recognition with young people.  John McCain wins because he’s John McCain.  Like death and taxes, he just is.  Well, maybe not death…

Any way you slice it, it’s a no-lose situation for McCain.  His ego is satisfied, his tech critics have been acknowledged (at least to a degree.) not to mention that  he will most likely win re-election, which is what he set out to do in the first place, Internet or no.

Well played, Senator.  Well played.