Former Sen. Fred Thompson today called it quits from a presidential campaign which he undertook with all of the enthusiasm of a small child being forced to eat his peas, strengthening the surging campaign of John McCain. Meanwhile that pesky Ralph Nader is making noise about joining the campaign at this late juncture.

Thompson's departure wasn't a shock. The former actor and lawyer proved to be a surprisingly inept campaigner. In one memorable moment chronicled on YouTube, Thompson even had to ask a crowd in for a round of applause. He didn't endorse any of his former rivals.

This creates an opening that McCain can exploit. Mike Huckabee is a likable enough guy, but many people will think twice before voting for a social conservative. As for Mitt Romney, on paper he is an ideal candidate for fiscal conservatives. The trouble is that the former Massachusetts governor has made one gaffe after another, including speaking about a lifelong love of hunting that had come from the two times he actually did it.

Remember in 2004 when Sean Combs Puff Daddy P-Diddy Diddy helped champion the "Vote or Die" campaign? Yeah, me neither. But for decades, attempts to get the younger generation to the polls have been critical parts of our major elections. I still remember watching Bill Clinton on MTV in the summer of 1992, lamenting the fact that I was only 18 and unable to vote.

A new President will be elected in about 50 weeks, and Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC Networks is planning on using new media to help educate the social-networking crowd about candidates and news along the campaign trail. The network has inked a deal with Facebook -- in which Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) owns a small stake -- to provide news reports and video for the nearly 60 million members of the website. Facebook members will also be able to participate in polls and debates.

ABC and Facebook have announced plans to jointly sponsor Democratic and Republican Presidential debates in New Hampshire on January 5, three days ahead of the critical primary election in the Granite State. Dan Rose, VP of business development for Facebook, told The New York Times that "Through this partnership, we want to extend the dialogue both before and after the debate."

The agreement was not of a financial nature. ABC News will have exposure on an increasingly popular site; Facebook gets free, fresh content for its political section.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Two things you need to know about Googlefight.com, a website my husband discovered a few days ago. First, it is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), although I'm sure free publicity is always appreciated. Secondly, it can quickly become the cause of profound procrastination. The innovative but simple site simply compares two inputs (provided by the user) and ranks them in terms of their respective number of results gleaned from Google's search engine. Each "fight" takes mere seconds, and the time passes quickly as animated stick figures slug it out.

Of course, I had to start with my own name (I probably think this blog is about me). I pit myself against a co-worker who also has a unique name (Mark Fightmaster). Aha! Google FIght found 634,000 results for "Beth Gaston Moon"; 57,200 for Mark (I do have about 6 years of seniority over him at our company, so that was hardly fair). But when compared against Pamela Anderson, I lose, 634,000 to 7.73 million (I have a feeling they round their numbers).

Some other matches I conducted before begrudgingly heading back to work:

• Hillary Clinton (9.1 million) defeats Barack Obama (2.62 million)
• Fred Thompson (10.6 million) defeats Rudy Giuliani (2.05 million) - to be fair, this may be pulling for more than one "Fred Thompson."
• Ben Bernanke (2.62 million) defeats Alan Greenspan (1.96 million)!
• Steve Jobs (88.5 million) defeats Bill Gates (44.6 million)
• Howard Stern (2.09 million) defeats Don Imus (1.98 million)
• 50 Cent (68 million) defeats Kanye West (6.72 million), despite what the numbers say
• O.J. Simpson (15 million) narrowly defeats "criminal justice system" (14.4 million)
• Mets (26 million) defeats Yankees (22.9 million)!
  

The site is hardly scientific, but it's interesting and certainly fun. According to Google Fight, some of its classic battle royales include God v. Satan, Luke Skywalker v. Darth Vadar, and Mohammad Ali v. Mike Tyson. Victors are God by a landslide, Vadar (hooray!), and Ali (again, by a hefty margin). Let the madness begin here.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

If you're a really big fan of Fred Thompson, you may not want him to run for president.

That's because federal equal time regulations restrict candidates from receiving more face time than others and, if Thompson does in fact become a candidate, General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) NBC may have to pull any episodes of Law & Order featuring him from the rerun rotation.

Cable television is not subject to those regulations so, if he does run, we could still in theory see Arthur Branch on Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE: TWX) TNT. However in the Governator's campaign, cable networks pulled his movies to avoid complaints.

All of this raises a question: Would America be better served if Thompson decided to forgo further political ambitions in order that we can watch Law & Order unrestricted?

Should politics really interfere with such a great show? I think not. Fred, for the sake of the show's loyal followers, don't run for President.