the buzz log
No guv luv in New York
Boy it sure isn't easy being a governor these days. If you're not being impeached for trying to sell the president's former Senate seat to the highest bidder, or forced to resign due to involvement in a high-end call girl scandal, you're probably taking on pariah status after being caught returning from your Argentine love nest with a "soul mate" not your wife.
So many different types of political ruin have befallen our states' chief executives the past few years, you may have thought all the possiblities exhausted by now. Not true, as Web users are taking note today of yet another Guv-on-the-run. News that President Obama has actually requested that Democratic Governor David Paterson of New York bow out of his 2010 re-election campaign has become a top draw in Yahoo! Buzz. As reported in the New York Times, AP, and Bloomberg, Obama wants Paterson to remove himself out of concern that his low poll numbers portend almost certain defeat and a potential drag on New York Democrats up for election in the House, as well as Kirsten Gillibrand in the Senate.
Although this governor's potential trip to Palookaville isn't generating the same salacious material as his predecessors', it's causing a stir nonetheless. From the New York Times:
"The move against a sitting Democratic governor represents an extraordinary intervention into a state political race by the president, and is a delicate one, given that Mr. Paterson is one of only two African-American governors in the nation."
Republican National Committee head Michael Steele also raised the issue of race when he said in an interview, "I found that to be stunning that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for reelection."
As for Governor Paterson, he stated that he has no plans to withdraw from the race.
More buzz sure to follow...
Filed under: Politics, New York, Presidents
The Buzz on Eliot Spitzer
News of Eliot Spitzer's connection to a prostitution ring swept like a grease fire across the Web. Articles on the New York governor's disgrace blazed upwards in Buzz, with a post from The Smoking Gun triggering one of the highest Buzz scores. The story drew so much traffic to The New York Times website, which broke the story, that it nearly brought the paper's webpage to its knees.
So far, the most heatedly sought-out searches are split between Spitzer and his office ("eliot spitzer," "new york state governor," "new york governor") and the salacious details of the ring itself ("emperors club vip"). Both "eliot spitzer" and "emperors club vip" roared into our top 10 hourly searches. As the story emerged—and the evidence against the Wall Street muckraker piled up—lookups of "spitzer resign" ignited.
Here are some of the other fastest-moving queries from the past several hours:
David Paterson—Currently the lieutenant governor of New York, he's next in line for the governorship if Spitzer steps down.
Silda Spitzer—Spitzer's wife. She appeared with him at the press conference this morning, but said nothing.
"Spitzer Clinton"—Spitzer is the governor of Hillary Clinton's state and a vocal supporter of the presidential candidate. If he stays in office, he will vote as a superdelegate in the Democratic primary. Does the governor's public fall from grace hurt the New York senator? Some analysts say yes.
Larry Craig—One sex scandal triggers thoughts of another, and here's buzz on the Idaho senator to prove it.
Bizarre Tragedy in NYC
Minutes after news went out that a plane had slammed into a New York City high-rise yesterday, searchers hit the Web. Hard. A groundswell of queries reflected how little information there was yet—and how much the crash triggered terrorist fears. The first line of searches to launch off the chart looked like this...
|
|
Then, the event became all the more surreal. New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor were both in the single-engine plane. They were out on what was supposed to be a "leisurely flight." They were both dead.
At this point, Buzz entered the second wave of shock. Searches on the right-handed pitcher and his Cirrus SR-20 plane outstripped all other buzz for the day. Demand for Lidle's biography, family, wife, team, and Wikipedia page all surged. Interest in two other baseball players who suffered similar fates in aviation crashes—Thurman Munson and Roberto Clemente—also leapt.
Throughout the day, searchers turned to breaking news sites with a clear sense of urgency. Here, as the final swell of searches in a day that stunned the country and the Buzz, are the news sources that spiked the most...
|
|
Filed under: New York, Cory Lidle, Accidents
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.