I conducted a little facebook experiment and thought it fitting to post prior to Sam Brownback leaving the race (hums tune "Another one bites the dust")

Here are the numbers of facebook friends for each republican candidate as of September 12th.

1. Ron Paul 23,141
2. Mitt Romney 17,204
3. Fred Thompson 12,718
4. John McCain 9,989
5. Mike Huckabee 4,548
6. Sam Brownback 2,664
7. Rudy Giuliani 980
8. Thomas Tancredo 851
9. Duncan Hunter 654

Total Friends 60,063

Ron Paul in the lead, no suprise there. Rudy Giuliani still in triple digits! That was a bit of a shocker.

Here are the results as of today October 18th (% change in parenthesis)

1. Ron Paul 31,617 (+36.6%)
2. Mitt Romney 19,431 (+12.9%)
3. Fred Thompson 17,688 (+39%)
4. John McCain 12,001 (+20%)
5. Rudy Giuliani 7,041 (+618%)
6. Mike Huckabee 6,489 (+42.6%)
7. Sam Brownback 3,061 (+14.9%)
8. Thomas Tancredo 1,007 (18.3%)
9. Duncan Hunter 822 (+25.6%)

Total Friends 99,157 (+65%)

Best Status Update:"Thomas [Tancredo] is challenging Mitt Romney to a trap shooting contest, loser drops out."

Worst Use of FacebookDuncan Hunter - A Flag for a profile picture, no information, no applications, no photos and no mentiont that he is even running for president.

Best Growth - Rudy Giuliani 618%Followed by Fred Thompson 39%Worst Growth - Mitt Romney 12.9%Followed by Sam Brownback 14.9%

According to these numbers the next to drop out will be Mitt Romney and Thomas Tancredo :-)

I'll be continuing to track these numbers and will be interested in see how the friends count compares to the actual vote. I've also got the numbers for the democrats and they put the republicans to shame. Obama has more friends than all the republicans put together.

What do you think about this data?