His faith always mentioned?

At www.politico.com I found typing in Mitt Romney pulled up some interesting results. There were 32472 results, and within the first dozen hits, the key topic for each search was regarding his faith and the fact that he is Mormon. There were sites that discussed it in a positive way and ones that completely trashed his religion. Some other topics were mentioned, but the primary subject highlighted in these stories were regarding his religion. At www.nationalreview.com there was not quite as strong a presence of initial stories that mentioned his faith and the fact that Romney is a Mormon. Out the roughly 1500 results that came up, none of the initial dozen hits had stories that highlighted, although they may have mentioned it late in the actual stories, the fact that Romney is Mormon. I think it’s a good thing that different websites concentrate on different aspects of a candidate. While his religion is important, I don’t think it’s right for it to always be mentioned as a front runner in stories, and as one can see from searching various sites, Romney actually has been given a chance with receiving diversified coverage.

Romney's results on Google.

When I typed in Mitt Romney into the search engine Google, I got 1.8 million hits the first time and then 2.16 million hits the second time. I’m not sure why there were additional hits in a search five minutes later, but it does show that Mitt Romney has a strong presence on the internet and this seems like it will make a difference in helping him reach potential voters. Of course, no person will go through every single hit they receive, instead people will go through the first few sites that pop up, and most likely will look at the “sponsored links” first because they are on the top right always. These top websites ranged from ones that had good, concrete info like his official website and ones like declareyourself.com, to sites that were more for entertainment like youtube.com and proGOPgear.com where you can buy t-shirts and stuff to show your support. There were even sites against Romney that came up like ConservativesAgainstRomney.com, which even though this was negative it still showed he has a strong internet presence. What I found though, was that each time I typed in Mitt Romney, I got different results for the websites that popped up. Most interestingly I found that instead of just getting Mitt Romney websites, there were also other Republican candidates that came up. In particular, and I don’t know how this happened, but every time I typed in Mitt Romney to google’s search engine, a top website was always one for John McCain and how you could get info on him and donate money. I guess this was smart on McCain’s part and unfortunate for Romney.

Racist Romney?

Mitt Romney The MittCast - Mitt Romney for President - The MittCast - 05.11.07 - Al Sharpton Apologizes

Mormons did not allow black priests before 1978 and Romeny was a Mormon before then. Does this mean that Romney is racist? Al Sharpton went on to say that Romney did not even believe in God. He took this back later the next day and said that he actually saw Mormons as Christians and was referring more to Athiests. WOW!

Romney Can't Imagine Anything Worse Than Polygamy

Click Here to Read the Article

In the interview Mitt admits to his ancestor's involvement in the polygamy that the early Mormon Church encouraged. I'd say that he distanced himself from the practice well enough, although I hope he didn't offend his Mormon following, who are going to be his main grassroots army. It's going to be interesting to hear how Mitt's Mormonism affects his candidacy.

Mormons for MITT?

www.lds.com

So what does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have to say about Mitt? Apparently not to much. After researching on their website there were only 7 articles related to their Mormon candidate. They do believe that the public view of the church will be questioned if Romney wins. The Mormon faith is currently the fourth largest in the world with 5.6 million believers. At the rate of Mitt's internet campaign, I'm not sure that the public view of church will have any need to be questioned.

"You know, I believe in my faith and I'm proud of my faith, but I'm not running as a Mormon, I'm running as a former governor, a business leader, a person who has a vision for the country to make us strong." -- Mitt Romney.

Romney Estimates Wealth in Millions

Read the Article Here

$190-$250 Million: Holy hell that's a lot of money. While a bank account like that might scream hypocrisy to the Democratic constituency, right-wing Republican voters have, historically, been able to look past economic differences with their candidate of choice and identify with his platform of values, morals, and other emotion-based issues. In other words, as long as Mitt is keeping gay people from being married and doing his part to overturn Roe v. Wade, middle and lower class Republican voters won't care that they will never be able to identify with the socio-economic status of their president of choice.

Mitt Knows Internet Makes a Difference

Romney has acknowledged that the internet is going to play an extremely important role in the upcoming primaries. The press has jumped on this and reported about the effort by Romney to reach the masses through the online world.

Capitol Hill Blue recently featured an article about Romney and his presence on facebook.com. The Romney team says that connecting the younger community with candidates and issues is vital in getting out the message and encouraging the younger generation to vote. When asked about the internet's impact, Romney's communications director said, "There's your literally door-to-door community outreach." http://www.capitolhillblue.com/wp/2007/02/10/2058

The Boston Globe also wrote an article about Romney's effort to connect with conservative bloggers. Romney weighed in on establishing a good internet base, "you want to be very closely conncected to the online world, to the blog world, and make sure your perspectives are being understood, and that the misperceptions, which inevitably creep up, are being nipped in the bud." Romney also said that he gets most of his news today online and said that this media is "a great force for the democratization of information." http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/12/31/romney_connecting_quickly_with_bloggers/

What does HARVARD have to say?

Mitt received a MBA and a law degree from Harvard , so I decided to see what their website had to say about their graduate. Harvard's website had hundreds of stories regarding their academic scholar. Most of which show that Mitt values principles over politics. Harvard did not seem to "endorse" the candidate like BYU did. This is probably because many candidates have called Harvard their alma mater unlike BYU.

What Do You Believe Is America's Single Greatest Challenge?

Mitt Romney has an open forum on YouTube.
Currently there has been a great response. The video has been viewed 442,413 times and it has had 1,657 comments have been made in response. 71 videos have also been posted.

Guess who Ben Affleck's pick for the Republican Nominee is?

Affleck: Clean-cut Romney GOP pick in ‘08

Since we know that Affleck put all his resources in 2004 into getting John Kerry elected, we can assume that he's not switching parties. He just made the comments while appearing on Bill Maher's show about who he thought would take the Republican nomination. Reasons for the choice include "he doesn't like abortion and he's all clean cut and he looks like a Ken doll."

Romney's rep was quoted as saying "We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what Hollywood actors are saying about the presidential campaign." That may be true for pundits and the political elite, but is it the same for the average uniformed citizen? I would contend that a Hollywood celebrity's endorsement is just as important as a political expert in Washington DC.

BYU and their support for Mitt.

BYU, Brigham Young University , Mitt's alma mater for his undergrad is endorsing him for the Republican canidate. After searching the BYU website I quickly found 222 articles all about Mitt. The Mormons seem to be crazy about Mitt and believe that he could do great things in the White House.

Can Mitt carry a TUNE?

iTunes is becoming on of the most usesd programs for Americans today. I decided to see if Mitt was able to keep up on this area of the internet. The results actually surprised me. After searching Mitt actually came up with some results. You can download and for free listen to MittCast. MittCast supports Mitt as the Republican nominee. iTunes returned downloadable books such as A Mormon in the White House? I expected to find "make fun of Mitt" songs or articles. Mitt seems to be carrying the tune (iTune that is) very well.

How funny is Mitt?

Alright, since over 20% of Americans who watch the news say that they get it from Comedy Central (which is extremely sad) I decided to see how Mitt was doing on their webpage. After searching for Mitt I found the link to three videos and and three pictures. They refer to Mitt as "Tight Mitt" . They smash his speech from the Republican debate. Stephen Colbert wants to know when Mitt decided to get soft on terrorists. So to answer the question about how funny is Mitt, aparentely he is not getting laughed with, but laughed at. Mitt's interent campaign seems to slowly be dwindling away day after day. Will he be able to change this before the Republican nomination is made?

Wikipedia and a Major Blog

The entry for Mitt Romney on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney is very similar to most of the other candidates. Most of the information is pretty cut and dry regarding his background, education, business career, work as the CEO for the Salt Lake City Games, and his election to the governorship of Massachusetts. There are no negative views in the entry except in the poliltical views section where it describes Romney changing his political views about abortion rights and same-sex marriages.

There is a major campaign blog out there, The Elect Romney in 2008 Blog, http://blog.electromneyin2008.com/ that is very active in covering the daily activities of the candidate. The entries are very informative with multiple posts per day. Anyone may leave a comment if they have opinions. There are plenty of audio visuals and political cartoons as well. All cartoons, pictures and videos depict Romney in a positive light. The page seems pretty legitimate because you can donate to his campaign via the website. There are also advertisements encouraging you to sign up for Team Mitt and to join his myspace, facebook and youtube groups.

The Elect Romney in 2008 Blog has so much new information that it is practically impossible to read each post and every attached comment. Unless you are an unwavering and dedicated supporter of Mitt Romney, the sight can be very overwhelming with numerous links to anything related to Mitt.

HITS FOR MIT!

So I have decided to try and give an overall evaluation of Mitt on the web. The exact number of hits he has on the world wide web.
Google: 2,740,000
Yahoo!: 17,900,000
You Tube: 1,690.
You Tube videos sponsored by the candidate: 147
Facebook groups: 291
Facebook events: 19

Mitt seems to be "hitting" it pretty hard. His presence is definitely out there, but is it enough to make him become a household name like Hilary, Obama , and Giuliani?

Mitt on Myspace

Romney's campaign efforts and presence are evident from the work that has been put into creating his myspace page. In some ways, it is similar to what is offered from his homepage. There are links to his personal blog as well as links to the blogs of his 5 sons. Like his homepage and facebook page, his myspace page lists his interests, personal information, and educational background. He has a slide show that runs while you are at his myspace page which has 253 images that range from professional and political pictures to more personal and informal family shots. He has pictures posted from as recent as four days ago and he seems to be active in posting recent photos.

Romney also has a video on the page welcoming you to his myspace page and asking for suggestions and changes that should be made in Washington. He also invites you to log onto his personal website. There is also a video section where he has uploaded 45 videos. Again, these videos range from debates and issue stances to ads and informal short clips.

It goes without saying that Mitt is very conscious about garnering recognition through his myspace page. He has over 21,000 friends so far and these numbers are no doubt likely to grow as we are still over a year away from the election. Although the myspace page is very informative, I believe that Romney would rather have the public log onto his personal homepage as compared to alternatives like myspace, facebook or youtube. His homepage is extremely important because it is the place that you can join the campaign team and make actual donations to the campaign.

You can view his page at www.myspace.com/mittromney.

FACEBOOK Stalking

After much "facebooking" I have learned a lot about Mitt. They say that the internet will play a prime role in the election on 2008 and it looks as if Mitt is on the right track. He currently has 8,109 supporters which is almost the most out of the other 14 running for the presidency. Mitt seems to keep his facebook updated by changing his "status" almost daily, by telling you were he is campaigning. With wallposts Mitt answers questions that many have about his campaign. I believe that facebook is a good way to get your name out there with the college student crowd. The only problem is that many students do not vote, so is this really helping is his campaign out? Facebook clearly states his views on certain issues. It is good for me as a voter to see in print what I am actually voting for, and I believe this is true for many others. Mitt has "notes" and pictures uploaded from previous campaigning spots. Mitt also lists links to other websites that are centered around him such as you tube and myspace. Could Facebook be the new wave for political canidates? After searching I found Facebook pages for almost all of the canidates running for the 2008 political campaign. It seems many other politicans have caught the wave.
Keep up with Mitt. http://uga.facebook.com/person.php?id=2333586120

Mitt's Homepage

Romney's personal homepage mittromney.com reveals that he is really attempting to present himself all over the internet. Aside from the normal featured news stories and appeals to donations for the campaign, there are aspects that are meant to be more personable. There is a section titled "Get to Know Mitt and Ann" in which Romney chronicles the history behind his relationship with his wife. Another feature of his personal website is Mitt TV, which plays all types of adds, debates, interviews and personal opinions.

The Romney homepage also has links to join groups on both myspace and facebook as well as a link to all videos related to Mitt on youtube.

The Romney campaign is also in tune with everyday blog postings. There is a page on his website named five brothers which allows you to access blogs from Mitt himself, his wife Ann, and each of his five sons. Links to all of their myspace pages are also provided. You can find the Romney Blogroll for all blogs regarding Romney and his campaign for the White House.

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome to our blog discussing Massachusetts Governor and Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's presence on the Internet. Each day over the next few weeks, we will be posting articles, videos, and pictures concerning the nominee. All four contributors are Political Science students at the University of Georgia. Our postings and articles are meant to be non-partisan and objective. Please feel free to leave your comments and let us know your opinions about Governor Romney.