Online security company Secure Computing is set to release a report next week that shows Barack Obama is simply clobbering John McCain in the U.S. presidential race, and that Sarah Palin is doing the same to Joe Biden for the job of vice-president.
That conclusion was reached by counting the number of times their names were used as come-ons in the zillions of spam messages that zot around the Internet every day.
The results showed that Obama led McCain 84.4 per cent to 12.6 per cent (a 6 to 1 ratio) in September, which was not reflected in traditional media sources, which had the Obama/McCain ratio of 9 to 10.
Reading this, I was put in mind of a throwaway line in the original Men in Black movie, in which the Tommy Lee Jones character scours the supermarket tabloids for news of aliens, calling the tabs “hot sheets.” The Will Smith character challenges him, and Jones answers, “Best investigative reporting on the planet. But go ahead, read The New York Times if you want. They get lucky sometimes.”
Yeah, it's a funny line. But there is a grain of truth in it. The supermarket tabs are perhaps better reflectors of who's preying on the popular mind than the entertainment shows on TV. (Not that this means much, nor do the TV entertainment shows either, for that matter.) Perhaps spammers are the on-line version of those tabs.
In any case, Secure Computing offers a sampling of the spammers' subject lines:
• Barack Obama Team In Crisis As George W Bush Lends Him 'Full Support'
• Satire Site Officially Endorses Obama, For What Painfully Little It's Worth
• Obama Supporters Attack Hillary In Second Life
• Jesus Endorses Obama; Four Horsemen Opt for McCain
• Obama Ahead Amongst Voters With Similarly Weird Names
• Palin Trumps Biden
Immediately after last night's vice-presidential debate between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, Palin had a 1.9 per cent to 1.1 per cent lead (a 5 to 4 ratio) in spam messages over Biden for the month of September. It was a little closer to the 7 to 2 ratio of Palin/Biden articles in the traditional media in favour of Palin.
What does all this mean then? Not a blessed thing, thank heavens. But it's fun to think about.
