Ok, there are too many tongue-in-cheek opportunities for pointing out the coincidence between John Denver's famous homage to the mountains and the Democratic National Convention starting today. What we can say with some confidence is that it doesn't refer to their chosen candidate's Net Promoter Score.

Not that this may matter in the election, Senator Obama's competitor, Senator McCain, appears to be in worse shape. BIGresearch has done the, well, big research on the topic and if you check out their news section you can get the scores. If you just want the headlines, Obama stands at 44.4% and McCain at 45.9%.

Negative, that is.

Yes folks (I'm told this is how you address people in a campaign), voters do not seem to be in a mood to recommend candidates to one another. Which, if you think about it, is pretty grim financial reading for politicians. Word of mouth is a vital part of running for office - think of the cost and emphasis around grass roots efforts and the party faithful. The "center for responsive politics" estimates that a candidate will have to spend around $500m to become president this year. Our guess is that the economics for candidates does not differ that much from that of a business - positive NPS or large ad budget, your weapon of choice. And we know it's all about relative scores, not absolute, but if so many folk are detractors you would expect "new entrants", right?