Forget the polls: new campaign barometer is who's winning the "Tweet race"

Tweet race: comparation of Twitter rankings of Brown and Coakley (click to enlarge)

Over at Legal Insurrection, conservative blogger William A. Jacobson has been keeping close track of the Massachusetts special election on January 19 to fill the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. A big booster of GOP candidate Scott Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley, Jacobson spotlights in a post today an intriguing new way to track how the candidates are doing -- the number of Tweets they're getting on Twitter, followers they're attracting on Facebook and other measures of online popularity.

Of course, after Barack Obama's campaign used the internet to generate excitement among younger voters and rake in zillions in small contributions, there is no question that how a candidate is doing online is potentially a big deal.

So how are they doing? According to Jacobson, Brown is way ahead and surging. Of course, in usually reliably Democratic Massachusetts, Tweets and Facebook friends from outside the commonwealth may not matter much. But then again...?

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

Related -- The respected, non-partisan Cook Political Report has changed its categorization of the Massachusetts Senate race from "Solid Democratic" to "Leans Democratic."