While she may not be a big hit with voters, Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has made a big splash on the net, becoming the butt of many online parodies and the star of umpteen viral videos.
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One of the most widely shared has been comedian Tina Fey's spoof of Mrs Palin on the US comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) .
Palin videos have dominated the most-viewed list on YouTube for this week.
There have been at least 600,000 hits each on the SNL skits and on Palin's interview with Katie Couric on CBS News. Actress Gina Gershon's bikini-wearing gun-toting parody of Palin, and Palin's appearances in the 1984 Miss Alaska beauty pageant have also drawn a lot of eyeballs.
In a dig at her self-styled tag of being a "hockey mum" and maverick, a fake Disney movie trailer titled Head Of Skate was created by collegehumour.com.
It was inspired by Hollywood star Matt Damon in a CBS interview comparing Palin's nomination to "a bad Disney movie". (The Damon video itself has received more than 2 million hits on YouTube.)
Not to be outdone is barelypolitical.com, which recalls her conservative views and Alaskan roots in the trailer Don't Cry For Me, Alaska . And if you're the sort who likes a tune or two, The Ballad Of Sarah Palin , replete with snappy lyrics, will certainly get you singing:
A card carrying member of the NRA Disagree with her, and she'll blow your ass away Sarah's very fond of shooting moose Bald eagles, puppies, and even a goose.
Also popular are websites Palin Quote Generator and the Palin Answer Generator , which is a satirical nod to her oblique and seemingly illogical answers to questions from interviewers Couric and Charlie Gibson on ABC News.
Online magazine Slate has also made mischief with her words, using her interview transcripts to form numerous poems :
You Can't Blink You can't blink. You have to be wired In a way of being So committed to the mission,
The mission that we're on, Reform of this country, And victory in the war, You can't blink.
So I didn't blink.
(From the interview with Gibson)
Website Sarah Palin Baby-Name Generator takes a more personal line, and pokes fun at the names she and her husband chose for their children: Bristol, Piper, Track, Willow and Trig.
The generator throws up the suggestion that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would have been named Tarp Lazer Palin if Palin was his mother, and his vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden would have been named Beans Harpoon Palin.
Or, if Palin was naming herself, she would be called Flack Gobbler Palin.
After attracting criticism for its cover of Obama as a Muslim with a machine-gun toting wife, The New Yorker has given Palin's I-Can-See-Russia-From-My-Window foreign policy claim the best visual play with a cartoon, on its October 6 cover , of the Governor looking out of a window.
As she looks out, she sees a tiny mound representing Russia in the distance while a whole landscape of large mounds representing Alaska looms in the foreground. A mock-up of a Foreign Affairs Weekly cover isn't any kinder, with quotes such as: "If Canada won't stand down, I will unleash Alaska's snowmobile army."
Not surprisingly, Palin's youth and physical attractiveness have not gone unnoticed. A website called vpilf.com (Vice President I'd like to ...) showcases media reports about her, such as one of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari calling her "gorgeous" after a meeting in New York (before his marriage to the late Benazir Bhutto, Zardari had a reputation for being a polo-playing playboy).
To top it off, an advertisement calling for a Palin lookalike to star in an adult film has emerged on online classifieds site Craigslist.
