I have been paying very close attention to the 2008 Presidential Election.  Probably too close.  I have watched every keynote convention speech, debate (presidential and VP) and much to my discredit, spent a lot of time reading many of the blogs from both sides.

One of the things that I’ve been able to determine, is a few people are getting VERY rich from this entire process.  Some of them are just plain lucky and others have capitalized on their 15 minutes of fame.  Here is my list of people getting rich from the election:

1) Kazuo Kawasaki:

Who?  Kazuo Kawasaki is the optic designer of the eye glasses that Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin sports.  Kazuo Kawasaki has reported that the style Sarah wears, the MP-704s, has been selling out nationwide.  And it’s not just the manufacturer raking in the cash on this new designer trend.  This is an Internet Marketer’s dream!  Take for instance the BANS site: http://sarahpalinsglasses.com which I am sure is doing quite well.

2) Gwen Ifill:

Gwen Ifill, the PBS newscaster and the moderator of the one-and-only Vice Presidental debate, took some serious flak from conservatives for her upcoming book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, which is scheduled for release on Jan 20, 2009.  Ironically enough, Jan 20, 2009 is the date of inauguration of our next President.  The argument was of course, that Gwen cannot be an impartial moderator in the debate because she stands to make big bucks for her book…IF Obama is elected.  In the end, Gwen ended up doing a pretty good job moderating AND stands to make a bunch of money from all the free publicity (thanks to the Republicans).

3) Joe the Plumber.

A week ago, we had never heard of “Joe the Plumber” the name given to Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Toledo, Ohio.  Joe is getting his 15 minutes of fame after asking Barack Obama a question on the campaign trail this past Sunday October 12.  His questions was about why he would be taxed more under Obama’s plan for working hard and being successful (good question).  Joe, who is thinking about purchasing the plumbing business he works for, has become a central figure in the economic policies of the Presidental candidate and was mentioned some 20+ times in last night’s Presidental debate.  Well Joe, get ready for some taxes because a) you will be successful because you just got a lot of free publicity for your business and b) it looks like Obama will be your next President.

Let’s not also forget the “real” Joe Plumber.   A unrelated plumbing business in Amarillo, Texas has the domain name: http://www.joetheplumber.com I am sure they they not minding the thousand’s of erroneous phone calls, emails and hits on their website.  Hopefully, they won’t have to pay for all the extra bandwidth they are going to use this month.   If you are an IM in Amarillo, you need to talk to these guys quickly about getting some Adsense ads on their website or at least some CafePress items with an affiliate link.  They are sitting on a gold mine.

Lesson: Seize opportunities and capitalize on popular trends.  Find out “what the fish are biting” before going fishing.   You’ll tend to be a more successful fisherman and IM if you know what to put on the hook before you cast.  So how do you find what is popular?

1) Try using Micro Niche Finder. An excellent tool for finding what is being searched for in the search engines

2) Google Trends:  You can use Google Trends as well to help find the most popular searches on Google and capitalize using a website script like BANS (Build a Niche Store) to put some money in your pocket.  You can also visit the Google Zeitgeist to find other hot trends.