Can Republicans Break Through the Debt Ceiling?

It's time for my bimonthly count of Facebook friends for Republicans getting in line to take on Barack Obama. I almost didn't notice, with the debt ceiling debate going on in Washington and none of these would-be contenders having a seat at that table.

The Democrats added over 1.6 million friends in the last 2 months, while all Republicans combined added only .9 million. If you take out Sarah Palin's 3.2 million friends and the 1.7 million friends for candidates from Mike Huckabee to Jeb Bush on the cross-out list, Facebook friends of Obama-Biden outnumber friends of the Republican field 7.7 to 1. With them, they are still outnumbered 2.8 to 1.

Candidate	Friends on 1/16/2011	Friends on 3/16/2011	Friends on 5/16/2011	Friends on 7/16/2011
Barack Obama	17,822,152	18,632,331	20,413,245	22,038,067
Joe Biden	271,971	274,670	282,433	299,388
Sarah Palin	2,606,586	2,777,509	2,957,627	3,191,711
Mitt Romney	751,391	814,705	899,055	1,041,454
Michele Bachmann	150,467	187,433	258,370	422,366
Ron Paul	307,493	307,495	356,452	419,099
Herman Cain	42,289	55,720	90,146	149,820
Jim DeMint	127,177	129,848	133,363	143,436
Newt Gingrich	100,489	113,269	131,779	142,281
Gary Johnson	-	110,466	114,000	129,275
Tim Pawlenty	69,985	73,135	86,907	103,337
Rick Perry	51,455	52,180	52,854	70,425
Allen West	-	-	64,057	67,330
Scott Walker	-	61,527	63,129	64,621
Mike Pence	45,923	47,712	48,542	48,893
Rick Santorum	12,211	13,252	16,221	23,482
Thaddeus McCotter	-	-	9,909	11,812
Peter King	-	-	11,232	11,525
Jon Huntsman	-	1,555	2,280	9,347
Jimmy McMillan	-	8,362	8,675	9,141
Roy Moore	-	-	70	8,235
John Bolton	5,170	5,658	6,056	6,354
Rudy Giuliani	1,891	2,194	2,535	3,211
Fred Karger	681	826	1,458	2,117
Buddy Roemer	-	570	1,496	1,806
Jon Greenspon	581	584	583	583
Andy Martin	-	-	560	570
Jonathon Sharkey	-	-	159	170
Mike Huckabee	522,079	541,409	586,020	647,376
Donald Trump	146,866	184,512	272,108	300,401
Scott Brown	-	-	237,462	239,086
Rand Paul	-	105,001	117,287	137,580
Bobby Jindal	121,977	122,353	125,614	129,824
Paul Ryan	50,908	56,496	71,923	79,181
John Thune	74,754	74,837	75,211	75,442
Mitch Daniels	39,413	44,528	49,908	50,614
Chris Christie	29,388	33,990	36,536	42,563
Mike Bloomberg	29,862	30,344	31,316	32,879
Haley Barbour	16,854	17,459	18,168	18,604
Jeb Bush	4,841	5,027	5,300	5,556
Total Obama-Biden Friends	18,094,123	18,907,001	20,695,678	22,337,455
Total Republican Friends	5,310,731	5,979,951	6,944,368	7,841,507

I have crossed out a number of candidates who have been insisting they are not running despite speculation to the contrary. It's time to take them at their word. But I haven't closed the field to only those who have declared since we are still waiting to hear from Sarah Palin.

Michele Bachman has moved past Ron Paul into second place among declared candidates, and joins Mitt Romney in the shadow of The Undeclared Sarah Palin.

Herman Cain has moved up three spots and now leads the chase pack. Tim Pawlenty has fallen solidly into last place in the chase pack. Still we can't taken any of these guys seriously until they collect more friends than Joe Biden to cross the Biden line.

Thadeous McCotter moved up a notch on the strength of his official announcement, but not high enough to want us to start calling him Thad.

Jon "The Other Mormon" Huntsman has just barely crossed the Jimmy "The Rent is Too Damn High" McMillan Line. Alabama Judge Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore is just below it. That tells you all you need to know about all three of these fringe candidates.