This summer, Carrie E. Andersen ’08, who is also from Illinois, saw Riesman’s mention of Obama on his thefacebook.com profile and sent him an enthusiastic message. She eventually helped him coordinate the concert. Riesman said the concert drew 300 people and was responsible for 150 youth voter registrations.  

Thefacebook.com also helped Riesman connect with Maya E. Frommer ’07, already fifteen-minutes famous for the “John Edwards is Hot” T-shirts she created.

Frommer was amenable to an Obama t-shirt but was having trouble coming up with a catchy pun. “She thought maybe she could rhyme Obama with baby’s mama,” Riesman recalled. He offered an alternative: “Barack and Roll,” the name of his concert, as well as “Barack My World.”

After exchanging e-mails with campaign staff, Frommer said she sent a bunch of shirts to headquarters. Unlike with the Edwards t-shirts, she didn’t hear anything back.

“They must be too busy down there winning,” she said.  

Down in the polls overall, Keyes only has the support of 43 percent of Republicans, according to a recent Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll.

Keyes said the polls were “obviously generated by a biased media that has put out a lot of lies.” He added that the “publication of polls should be banned, because they’re manipulated to demoralize people who disagree with the media.”

—Staff writer Irin Carmon can be reached at carmon@fas.harvard.edu.