Colbert fan group on Facebook soars like an eagle

Stephen Colbert should consider naming Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as his running mate* in his quasi-legitimate presidential campaign; the social-networking site has been the political satirist’s prime rallying grounds.

Sometime on Thursday night, a Facebook fan group for Colbert’s campaign met its membership goal of 1 million Facebook members–and the group was founded just over a week ago.

The group, “1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T Colbert” (the “T” stands for Tyrone, for the record) was started by a Facebook user shortly after The Colbert Report host announced that he was going to enter the presidential primary in his home state of South Carolina as a “favorite son.” It’s a take-off on the “1,000,000 Strong for Barack Obama” Facebook group, which has yet to crack 400,000 members after nine months. The equivalent Colbert group took just over a week to hit a million.

“Colbert-Zuckerberg ‘08″ does have a nice ring to it.

Several blogs have asserted that this is the fastest-growing group in Facebook’s history. I find that very easy to believe, but there is no official confirmation: Facebook says it neither tabulates how fast groups grow nor offers a central list of the biggest groups on the site. (Facebook execs presumably have other things on their mind, like this whole “Microsoft thing.”)

On the more serious side of things, the light-hearted enthusiasm over Colbert’s “presidential campaign” could be a sign that young American voters are getting sick of Election 2008’s career politicians have already been plastered all over the media. The really scary part: there’s still over a year to go in this race.

Meanwhile, Editor and Publisher reports that not only will the mayor of Columbia, S.C., declare this coming Sunday “Stephen Colbert Day” when the “favorite son” comes for a visit, but that polling firm Rasmussen has actually bothered to include Colbert in a telephone survey that pitted him against Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani.

Nation, these are frightening times we live in.

*Yes, yes, I know that it probably breaks election law for the 23-year-old Zuckerberg to appear on a campaign ticket, and I also know that he’s probably too busy taking over the world to bother with politics.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’m a young voter and proud member of 1,000,000 strong for Stephen T Colbert. The entire electoral process is a ridiculous joke, and it’s a breath of fresh air to have a “politician” who is self-conscious of the fact. Read the coverage by Matt Taibbi, or his excellent book on the 2004 election, “Spanking the Donkey.” He does a great job of deconstructing the whole charade.

As Noam Chomsky wrote after the 2004 election:

“…the parties try to exclude the population from participation. So they don’t present issues, policies, agendas, and so on. They project imagery, and people either don’t bother or they vote for the image….The elections are run by the same guys who sell toothpaste. They show you an image of a sports hero, or a sexy model, or a car going up a sheer cliff or something, which has nothing to do with the commodity, but it’s intended to delude you into picking this one rather than another one. Same when they run elections. But they’re assigned that task in order to marginalize the public, and furthermore, people are pretty well aware of it.”

Since elections are all about image, I’d rather vote for a candidate whose existence is based on a self-consciously funny image than one of the many candidates who embrace the same hackneyed political schema to mask a destructive, hawkish pro-corporate agenda.

Go Colbert.