What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.
It’s time for yet another update of our ongoing survey of the full range of GOP presidential candidates – possible, presumed, withdrawn, speculated, and fully announced and running alike – to measure their prominences and impacts here in cyberspace, and rank them according to their PeekScores.
The first Republican primaries are only a couple of months, or so, away and the 2012 general election is now merely one full year off. Whatever your feelings on presidential politics, the candidates, the media, and the issues, you’d be hard pressed to describe the current climate as predictable or boring.
As with our last update, the list remains shockingly volatile, and chart positions and PeekScores – at least among the biggest named candidates – have been anything but static. The biggest development since our last update – both in the mainstream media, and apparently here in cyberspace – has been the emergence of Herman Cain as not merely an interesting candidate with an outside chance, but (according to some polls) actually the one to beat. Whatever the security or legitimacy of his frontrunner status, there’s no denying that as of this update – to our surprise – he somewhat comfortably tops our list.
Mitt Romney, the gentleman still most widely suspected to be the one who will emerge with the nomination, has risen a mere spot on our list from seventh place to sixth.
One noteworthy but not entirely surprising leap up the charts has come from New Jersey governor Chris Christie. While early in October he announced quite decisively and unambiguously that his hat would not be in the presidential ring this go ’round, the heat generated from the media’s “will he or won’t he?” frenzy preceding that announcement is clearly still being felt throughout the Web.
Also worthy of mention is the continued ascent of New Mexico’s libertarian-leaning former governor Gary Johnson. When we first began posting these lists this past spring, he was lurking around the list’s bottom, a big question mark to most. While still hardly a household name, and still shut-out of most of the major debates, he’s obviously garnering some attention here in cyberspace. This most recent update finds him climbing from 17th place to 12th.
And now a couple of quick disclaimers for first time readers:
In compiling this list, PeekYou is not trying to suggest that a measurement of a candidate’s online presence or impact is any indication of the likelihood of him or her winning an election. If it were the case that we believed such a thing, you could then suppose that we believe Charlie Sheen has a better chance of becoming president than Mitt Romney. We don’t mean to imply any such thing. This feature exists as much for the purposes of comparing the realties of the online world to the offline, as anything. Out where the sky is blue they say Mitt Romney is the one to beat, but here in the ether it seems they’re not so sure. Make of that what you will.
As is probably the case in most workplaces throughout the country, the political inclinations of the PeekYou staff run the gamut. These rankings are entirely objective and impartial.
| Rank | Picture | Name | Bio | Current PeekScore |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 |
Herman Cain | Former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza | 9.86 / 10.00 |
| 2 |
|
Former governor of Alaska | 9.74 / 10.00 | |
| 3 |
|
Rick Perry | Governor of Texas | 9.61 / 10.00 |
| 4 |
|
Ron Paul | Congressman from Texas | 9.55 / 10.00 |
| 5 |
|
Governor of New Jersey | 9.46 / 10.00 | |
| 6 |
|
Mitt Romney | Former governor of Massachusetts | 9.30 / 10.00 |
| 7 |
|
Former governor of Arkansas | 9.23 / 10.00 | |
| 8 |
|
Michele Bachmann | Congresswoman from Minnesota | 9.17 / 10.00 |
| 9 |
|
Chairman, Trump Organization | 9.15 / 10.00 | |
| 10 |
|
Rick Santorum | Former senator from Pennsylvania | 9.14 / 10.00 |
| 11 |
|
Rudy Giuliani | Former mayor of New York City | 9.07 / 10.00 |
| 12 |
|
Gary Johnson | Former governor of New Mexico | 8.79 / 10.00 |
| 13 |
|
Tim Pawlenty | Former governor of Minnesota | 8.73 / 10.00 |
| 14 |
|
Jon Huntsman | Former governor of Utah | 8.64 / 10.00 |
| 15 |
|
Paul Ryan | Congressman, chairman of the House Budget Committee | 8.63 / 10.00 |
| 16 |
|
Newt Gingrich | Former speaker of the House of Representatives | 8.49 / 10.00 |
| 17 |
|
Scott Brown | Junior senator from Massachusetts | 8.43 / 10.00 |
| 18 |
|
Governor of Indiana | 8.34 / 10.00 | |
| 19 |
|
Lindsey Graham | Senior senator from South Carolina | 8.29 / 10.00 |
| 20 |
|
John Bolton | Former US ambassador to the United Nations | 8.28 / 10.00 |
| 21 |
|
Thad McCotter | Congressman from Michigan | 8.08 / 10.00 |
| 22 |
|
Andy Martin | Frequent political candidate and litigant | 8.05 / 10.00 |
| 23 |
|
Jimmy McMillan | Political activist | 8.02 / 10.00 |
| 24 |
|
Roy Moore | Former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court | 8.00 / 10.00 |
| 25 |
|
Buddy Roemer | Former governor of Louisiana | 7.99 / 10.00 |
| 26 |
|
Fred Karger | Former campaign advisor to Reagan and Ford, gay activist | 7.95 / 10.00 |
| 27 |
|
Vern Wuensche | Small-businessman, frequent candidate | 7.06 / 10.00 |