Mitt Romney vs. Bobby Jindal vs. Joe Lieberman vs. Tom Ridge vs. Tim Pawlenty

After yesterday's Democratic veep stakes post, we of course need to have a look at the contenders to join McCain on the Republican ticket:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "bobby jindal" in all years.
mitt romney 8.00
bobby jindal 1.00
joe lieberman 1.00
tom ridge 1.00
tim pawlenty 0

Romney stands out totally as he is the only one to have participated in the primaries. Lieberman was defeated in his Democratic senatorial primary but then went on to win in November 2006 as an independent. This too is visible. Jindall has an even smaller peak in November 2007 when he was elected governor of Louisiana, the first Indo-American governor elected in any US state. But let us again look at a last-12-months graph courtesy of Google Trends:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "bobby jindal" in the last 12 months.
"mitt romney" 6.00
"bobby jindal" 1.00
"joe lieberman" 0.20
"tom ridge" 0.20
"tim pawlenty" 0.20

Romney is even more popular here because the primaries loomed so large. Finally, the last-30-days graph:


Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of "bobby jindal" in the last 30 days.
"mitt romney" 1.35
"bobby jindal" 1.00
"joe lieberman" 0.40
"tom ridge" 0.55
"tim pawlenty" 0.55

After the primaries, we notice Tom Ridge peaking and remaining popular. The other candidates catch up with him in the end. They are not meaningfully separated though the in-anything-but-name Republican senator Lieberman has a slight advantage.