The internet has changed the way elections are run in the United States and throughout the world.  This year we have to select our next president, but first we have to get through the primaries.  Let’s take a different approach to decide the winner, and ultimately, the president.  Let’s analyze each presidential candidate’s traffic and decide the winner right here and now.

The best way to accurately estimate a website’s traffic is to look at their Alexa ranking.  (Keep in mind this is by no means a scientific study, nor is it worth reading the whole way through since there is a graph but I’ll do my best to keep you entertained.  )

As you can see from the graph, people can care less about John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Hilary Clinton, and Mike Huckabee (who is left off the chart, but his traffic is also negligible).  Now let’s talk about the near identical site traffic of Barack Obama and Ron Paul’s websites.

First, there is a huge increase in traffic for Barack Obama.  My best guess that would explain this huge spike had to be the announcement that he won the Iowa Caucus.  Prior to that, it looked as if Ron Paul was going to run away with this election.  Speaking of Ron Paul. . .

Looking at the graph, Ron Paul has been fairly consistent and has even gained considerable momentum as time has gone on.  The explanation is fairly simple if you visit popular social news websites such as Digg.com and Reddit.com.  Basically any story about Ron Paul will get to the front page of both of them these days.  (Hey, that gives me an idea, RON PAUL, RON PAUL, RON PAUL)  Not to mention the legion of Myspace users who seem to also like him.  

How does one explain this infatuation with Ron Paul?  I don’t know.  Why was Snakes on a Plane popular and why did everyone love the whole Chuck Norris thing.  If this blog entry teaches you anything, it should be that the internet is a crazy crazy place.  Something tells me that the Ron Paul crowd won't actually vote, so I have to declare Barack Obama  as winner and our future president.  Imagine if all that internet traffic ACTUALLY voted.

Actually you know what, I am already demanding a pre-emptive recount of this traffic-based election because Alexa has some hits it failed to count!