I was looking over Twitter's suggestions of who to follow in different areas, and was surprised to see how few people are following some of the Republican Party's brightest stars. Like our good friend Caribou Barbie Sarah Palin. Follow me over the flip for some details...
The numbers below are based on some recent searches, but keep in mind that they change by the hour, so take them as a rough approximation.
On our side, some of the more commonly followed tweeters, with their Twitter names, are:
Barack Obama (BarackObama) - 4,546,030 followers
Al Gore (algore) - 2,139,407
White House (whitehouse) - 1,784,511
Rachel Maddow (maddow) - 1,659,235
Gavin Newsom (GavinNewsom) - 1,342,976
Jerry Brown (JerryBrown2010) - 1,114,995
Joe Trippi (JoeTrippi) - 1,109,864
Paul Krugman (NYTimeskrugman) - 408,765
Keith Olbermann (KeithOlbermann) - 78,196
Donna Brazile (donnabrazile) - 38,886
Claire McCaskill (clairecmc) - 38,497
Joe Biden (joebiden) - 32,762
Barbara Boxer (Boxer2010) - 21,307
Chris Dodd (SenChrisDodd) - 11,988
Russ Feingold (russfeingold) - 10,043
Harry Reid (SenatorReid) - 8,727
DNC (democratsdotorg) - 8,105
Nancy Pelosi (SpeakerPelosi) - 5,573
On the other side, here's how some of them line up:
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Schwarzenegger) - 1,727,287
John McCain (SenJohnMcCain) - 1,721,727
Newt Gingrich (newtgingrich) - 1,309,107
Carly Fiorina (CarlyforCA) - 278,794
Glenn Beck (glennbeck) - 256,035
Meg Whitman (Whitman2010) - 234,734
Sarah Palin (SarahPalinUSA) - 189,414
Karl Rove (KarlRove) - 151,066
Drudge Report (Drudge_Report) - 95,742
Michelle Malkin (michellemalkin) - 87,642
Mike Huckabee (GovMikeHuckabee) - 82,927
Sean Hannity (seanhannity) - 50,789
John Boehner (johnboehner) - 48,154
Jim DeMint (JimDeMint) - 41,187
Michele Bachmann (MicheleBachmann) - 18,205
RNC (RNC) - 16,089
Tom Coburn (TomCoburn) - 14,726
Mitt Romney (MittRomney) - 14,153
Sarah seems to get a lot of attention when she tweets, but really she doesn't have all that many followers relative to some of the bigger names in tweeting out there.
A lot of these are obviously being driven by who is spending more time on Twitter; many, although not all (Pelosi), of the Californians and those more into technology (like Gingrich) have much higher numbers than those who perhaps come from districts with a lower percentage of people on Twitter. And some may have gained a following because they became known as more frequent or entertaining tweeters.
Still, I thought it was interesting to see what the numbers looked like.