Who are college students excited about?

There is a new feature on Facebook (social networking website for college students) that allows members to join "groups" to show support for a particular candidate or issue in the context of the 2006 elections. For example, someone particularly enthused about "Jennifer Granholm," "Debbie Stabenow," and Global Warming can join these groups. One group, "Students Against Facebook News Feed," amassed over 700,000 members in the period of a few days.

Most college students are on Facebook. Users aren't asked to pick candidates -- they opt to join candidate and issue groups on their own. Facebook recently released an "Election Pulse" to show each candidate's performance on Facebook. The Facebook "Election Pulse" serves as a very rough approximation of excitement for candidates among college students.

As of 9/16, here are some of the numbers for Michigan's critical races:

MI-Gov:

1.	Dick DeVos (REP)
	51.79%
2.	Jennifer Granholm (DEM)
	46.51%
3.	Greg Creswell (LIB)
	1.7%

MI-Sen:

1.	Debbie Stabenow (DEM)
	57.35%
2.	Mike Bouchard (REP)
	38.26%
3.	Leonard Schwartz (LIB)
	2.35%
4.	Frank Cona (DEM)
	1.97%
5.	Brett McAtee
	0.06%

MI-08

1.	Congressman Mike Rogers (REP)
	52.94%
2.	Jim Marcinkowski (DEM)
	41.98%
3.	Dick Gach(LIB)
	3.74%
4.	John Mangopoulos
	1.34%

MI-09

1.	Joseph Knollenberg (REP)
	59.53%
2.	Nancy Skinner (DEM)
	35.81%
3.	Adam Goodman (LIB)
	4.65%

Numbers for other House Districts are available on Facebook.

Because these groups are voluntary, keep in mind that this is not indicative of how college-age students would vote (just who Internet-using college students are excited about). Because participation is voluntary, and because different students use Facebook to varying degrees, these numbers have no statistical significance whatsoever.

Still, these numbers don't look fantastic. Bouchard is only this low because nobody knows who he is yet. If you're on Facebook, please take a moment and join groups for these Democratic candidates.

Cross-posted on Michigan Liberal and Kicking Ass Ann Arbor.

EDIT: Jordan has more on MI-Dems.

UPDATE (9/17, 3:16 AM): On a completely unrelated note, thanks to MLM Liberal for plugging the Amway Exposed series. Along with being formatted very nicely, it also includes pictures and additional links.