by WonkoKevin

Newcomer Stephen Colbert pulled down 2% buzz share in Wonkosphere yesterday from liberal bloggers, beating out Mike Gravel and in a tie with Mr. Undeclared and Bill Richardson.  The Colbert campaign came out hitting yesterday, announcing its first line-in-the-sand policy statement.  Mike Palanti, a Colbert politico from Chester, South Carolina was quoted as saying, “Read my lips: No new faxes.”  When Palanti was questionied further on this, he relented: “The Colbert campaign will not support outdated technologies.  Why do we need to take digital data, print it out in analog form, and scan in back into digital form to send to someone else?  Additionally, eliminating fax numbers will create more room on our business cards for our MySpace and Facebook home page addresses.  The Colbert campaign is committed to texting, email, and pot (ed. note: plain old telephone)”.  There was no news on where the other campaigns stood on this fax issue, sure to be a pivotal topic here in the gateway to the South.

by WonkoSteve

Today we welcome Stephen Colbert to the Wonkosphere. Two days (well, really one and a half) after announcing his intention to run for the Democratic and Republication nomination in South Carolina, Colbert debuts with a 1% Buzz Share. That ties him with Nobel Laureate Al Gore, and puts him in the lead over already-announced candidates Gravel, Hunter, Keyes, Kucinich, and Tancredo.

Colbert, who is positioning himself as South Carolina’s “favorite son” is trailing former North Carolina Senator John Edwards who is currently coming in at 7% of the buzz. Edwards, who has been positioning himself as South Carolina’s “native son,” was accused by Colbert earlier this week of stealing a campaign issue–so far his only campaign issue. Edwards is reportedly considering a challenge to go “toe-to-toe” with Colbert over the matter on Colbert’s show.

It remains to be seen whether Colbert can give himself the famous “Colbert bump” in coming weeks. Indeed there is some question in my mind about whether the bump has lost its kick. After Dennis Kucinich appeared on the show earlier this week to empty his pockets, he remained mired in the zero to one percent range for buzz share.