100,000 people want N.J.’s Jon Stewart to run a presidential debate

Well, that's ... more.

Two days ago, when New Jersey 101.5 told you about Clifton resident Mariel Waters' Change.org petition to have Lawrenceville native Jon Stewart moderate a presidential debate, just about 1,500 people had signed on. And Waters was pretty stoked about the progress to that point.

As of 8:30 Thursday, more than 110,000 people were on board (and that number is growing fast — that's about 10,000 more than an hour earlier).

Clearly, something is happening. Maybe it's all the activity around the #WeWantJon Twitter hashtag — seen by more than 700,000 people so far, according to Twitter-tracking tools.

Maybe it's the amount of media attention the effort's getting. There have been articles by Time, Deadline, the Los Angeles Times, CNN Money and plenty of others.

Of course, they were all well behind New Jersey 101.5, which interviewed Waters for a story on Tuesday.

At the time, we asked about the possibility of this thing blowing up. ...

NJ 101.5: So how big do you think this might get? Because 1,500 (petitioners)is nice, but not enough to grab the New York Times’ or debate commission’s attention. Optimistic it’ll go viral?

Waters: I have to be! When I read the comments on the petition and see that people from around the country are excited about this idea, it gives me hope. I believe in Mr. Stewart’s ability to deliver an quality debate and that is the strength of this petition and it’s potential to go viral.

The idea got a mixed reaction from our Facebook followers at Facebook.com/NJ1015.

"No way!" Keith Windiddy wrote, garnering 31 likes. "He is very pro Democratic party. His (questions) will be biased."

Benjamin Mankowski Sr. had a fun idea: "Let him moderate a Republican debate, and let Ted Nugent moderate a Democrat debate."

And James G Duffy Jr. was just a tad cynical:

"A clown and a court jester moderating a presidential debate. That's a good one. But nothing new there, considering who moderated the last one."

But the thing keeps growing and growing. Even Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O'Malley is on board:

What do you think? Are you in the #WeWantJon camp? Tell us in the comments below or Tweet to us @NJ1015.