The Palin Pileup

After Day 2 of the GOP convention, there is plenty of buzz about the Republican ticket in the online universe. But virtually none of it is about the man on top.

On Wednesday morning, the five bellwethers of online media we are following were fixated for the second day in a row on John McCain’s surprising choice for VP—the largely unknown Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. And in most cases, the news wasn’t good.

To get a sense of the online buzz during the conventions, PEJ is monitoring five online destinations each morning at 9 a.m. The sample includes the top political headline on the Drudge Report, top political headline on the Huffington Post, the political story most linked to by bloggers in the previous 48 hours, according to the blog aggregating site Technorati, the most emailed political story on Yahoo! News, and the most viewed political video on YouTube.

The liberal blog, the Huffington Post led with the headline “Palin Wasn’t Interviewed Until Day Before VP Offer.” That was linked to a Washington Post story reporting that McCain’s chief vetter conducted Palin’s first “lengthy in-person background interview” the day before the Arizona Senator chose her.

More questions on the vetting front were raised by the most-linked-to story on blogs monitored by Technorati. The winner was another Washington Post piece reporting that although McCain has crusaded against federal earmarks, Palin secured almost $27 million in earmarks as mayor of Wasilla (pop. 6,700).

The story users had emailed most on Yahoo News! in turn speculated on the possibility that Palin would be forced off the ticket. “McCain More Likely to Drop Palin, Bookmakers Say,” was the headline atop a Bloomberg story reporting that bookies in England and Ireland say the odds on a Palin exit are dropping. In one such sporting house, the price plunged from 20-1 to 8-1.

The Drudge Report went with a meteorological headline but the same topic as others. “Hurricane Sarah Hits St. Paul” linked to an AP story about whether Palin’s Wednesday night convention speech would help allay “distracting questions about her family life and qualifications.”

And for the second day in a row, the most viewed YouTube video was the convention arrest of liberal radio host Amy Goodman (about 472,000 views). But a clip of CNN’s Campbell Brown interviewing McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds about Palin’s qualifications was next, with almost 400,000 views. The contentious interview features Brown asking Bounds to “explain to us why you think that Governor Palin is ready to be commander-in-chief.,” and chastising him for “not answering my question.” Later, the story broke that McCain had cancelled a sitdown with Larry King in retaliation for Brown’s interview.

PEJ will continue the Convention Buzz Detector throughout the Republican convention.