• by Wayne Friedman , September 7, 2007

If voter interest was determined by Internet, Democrat Sen. Barack Obama would battle former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson for the presidency, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Obama grabbed more unique monthly visitors on his Web site in July--717,000--besting fellow Democrats Sen. Hillary Clinton with 437,000, and John Edwards at 348,000.

Former Senator and "Law & Order" actor Fred Thompson was No. 1 for Republicans with 381,000 unique visitors. All this came in July, when Thompson hadn't yet announced his candidacy. Way down the list were other Republican candidates: Rudy Giuliani at 124,000; Mitt Romney at 116,000; Ron Paul at 113,000; and John McCain at 104,000.

But time spent with each candidate is a different story.

In this instance, Clinton led the way--with each visitor spending 8 minutes and 17 seconds, on average, on her Web site. Obama was behind at 7:53.

On the Republican side, Giuliani earned a 7:33, then Ron Paul at 6:52. After that, visitors offered little time for other Republicans: John McCain, 1:47; Fred Thompson, 1:35; and Mitt Romney, less than a minute--at 49 seconds.

Nielsen/NetRatings executives believe that Republicans, save Thompson, have been slower to take advantage of the Internet than Democrats.

But Republicans are in the mix when it comes to spending total advertising money on the Internet--both candidate and third-party supporter money. McCain has been dominant with a total of 7.7 million online ad impressions in July. Mitt Romney was next with 4.7 million impressions.

Farther down the list, Dennis Kucinich was in third place, with 820,000 impressions. Clinton came next with 327,000.

When it comes to the big free-video area of YouTube, Democrats are still dominant with 475,000 unique visitors in July, compared to the Republicans' 275,000.