Barack Obama is Winning Reelection on Facebook, But Who is Gary Johnson?

In the real world, President Barack Obama faces a tough fight to win reelectionin 2012. Or maybe not. On Facebook, Barack Obama continues to build on the commanding lead he had when I first counted in January.

Candidate	Friends on 1/16/2011	Friends on 3/16/2011
Barack Obama	17,822,152	18,632,331
Joe Biden	271,971	274,670
Sarah Palin	2,606,586	2,777,509
Mitt Romney	751,391	814,705
Mike Huckabee	522,079	541,409
Ron Paul	307,493	307,495
Michele Bachmann	150,467	187,433
Donald Trump	146,866	184,512
Jim DeMint	127,177	129,848
Bobby Jindal	121,977	122,353
Newt Gingrich	100,489	113,269
Gary Johnson	-	110,466
Rand Paul	-	105,001
John Thune	74,754	74,837
Tim Pawlenty	69,985	73,135
Scott Walker	-	61,527
Paul Ryan	50,908	56,496
Herman Cain	42,289	55,720
Rick Perry	51,455	52,180
Mike Pence	45,923	47,712
Mitch Daniels	39,413	44,528
Chris Christie	29,388	33,990
Mike Bloomberg	29,862	30,344
Haley Barbour	16,854	17,459
Rick Santorum	12,211	13,252
Jimmy McMillan	-	8,362
John Bolton	5,170	5,658
Jeb Bush	4,841	5,027
Rudy Giuliani	1,891	2,194
Jon Huntsman	-	1,555
Fred Karger	681	826
Jon Greenspon	581	584
Buddy Roemer	-	570
Total Obama-Biden Friends	18,094,123	18,907,001
Total Republican Friends	5,310,731	5,979,951

I counted every Republican hopeful, wishful, wistful, or wasteful and even in the aggregate they don't have enough friends to unseat Barack Obama.

Of course it is too soon for this, but it is worth seeing where each candidate starts. Herman Cain did move up two notches from January, and Paul Ryan and Chris Christie each moved up one notch.

But who is Gary Johnson? I hadn't even been watching him until I noticed a suprising following that puts him at #9 on the Republican list, just a notch below the much better known New Gingrich and above a host of politicians giving the race serious consideration.

Turns out that Gary Johnson was Governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003. More recently he has been leading a political advocacy group called Our America Initiative.



Gary Johnson got his start as a door-to-door handyman, then started his own construction business, Big J Enterprises, which he grew into a multi-million dollar corporation that employed over 1,000 people.

"Good government is easy," Gary Johnson says. His method is a quiet but emphatic "just say no" with 750 vetoes on his belt in 8 years as governor. Only 2 of those vetoes were overridden.

Update: Red-meat conservatives won't find much to their taste on Gary Johnson's blog, at the Huffington Post, although the Other McCain thinks Gary is cool.

Update 3/25/2011: Added Rand Paul.