The YouTube Primary

For my money, YouTube has always been the most important of all the Web 2.0 technologies. Accordingly (and since YouTube doesn't offer such information, which it could easily do in real time, as opposed to the static statistics below), I've decided to compile a list comparing the number of subscribers each candidate has on his YouTube channel (as of 11:57 AM EST):

Republicans

1. Ron Paul: 2,153 (and rapidly growing)

2. Mitt Romney: 1,889

3. Rudy Giuliani: 1,277

4. John McCain: 1,185

5. Duncan Hunter: 249

6. Mike Huckabee: 146 [1]

7. Tom Tancredo: 136

8. Sam Brownback: 65

9. Jim Gilmore: 27 [2]

Democrats

1. Barack Obama: 5,386

2. John Edwards: 2,673

3. Hillary Clinton: 1,849 [3]

4. Bill Richardson: 657

5. Joe Biden: 557

6. Christopher Dodd: 212

7. Mike Gavel [4]

[1] I couldn't find Huckabee's account via YouTube.com, so I had to Google "Mike Huckabee YouTube."
[2] Gilmore's YouTube presence is the least of his online headaches.
[3] I couldn't find Hillary's account via YouTube.com, and Googling it didn't work either. Fortunately, HillaryClinton.com features a prominent link.
[4] Don't even ask.

We've long known that Obama's newness, youth and charisma attracts Generation YouTube (hence his crushing lead among all the candidates), so what surprised me was the dramatic decline between the first-tier candidates and the second-tier ones.

The exception, of course, is Ron Paul, whose blog this morning touted the news that within the past 24 hours, he's surpassed Mitt Romney for YouTube's #1 spot among the Republicans.

Equally exciting: RonPaul2008.com is undergoing a slight but noticeable and urgently needed upgrade. Campaign Press Secretary Jesse Benton tells me:

When Ron decided to declare his candidacy on March 12, we had to move quickly to get a functional Web site up and running. We have listened to volumes of feedback and are working to improve our site. Most importantly, we have placed our e-campaign tools in visible, functional locations on our homepage. Our design team and our director of e-campaigns, Justine Lam, will continue to make adjustments to enhance aesthetics and make the site even more user friendly.

Update (5/17): It was only a matter of time. In partnership with TubeMogul, techPresident has created some snazzy charts that are updated every day. They also boast equally excellent charts for MySpace. Wow!