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On the Virtual Campaign Trail

~ a comparative review of the political campaign websites of clinton, obama and mccain ~

Those of you who know me appreciate that I am so non-political that I verge on anti-political. Given that, you would probably never suspect me to post on the American political scene, but yet here it is.

This post comes on the heels of a request from the Web Marketing Association to review the websites of the two Democratic presidential contenders, that is, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The exercise proved more interesting than ever I expected, primary due to the insight it gives into the way the political machines are embracing the Internet and social media.

So, for all you armchair political observers, and also for those of you sincerely interested in these presidential puppet shows, I've assembled a quick snapshot of the Virtual Campaign Trail -- a overview of what the three leading candidates are doing online today.

Barack Obama

Barack's site is certainly the most progressive in terms of integration of social media -- heck he's promoting himself on sites I've never even heard of!

The site makes more of an effort to be inclusive of different groups than the other candidates and kudos to him for being the only candidate promoting voter registration right on page one (above the fold, no less). Obama is also the only candidate to produce a substantial parallel site in Spanish.

The site is well done and has a real WordPress/Drupal look to it (not sure what he's running here - may be a custom build?) but the site is a bit more difficult to navigate that the Hillary site, which is very well laid out and usable.

For a (very small) laugh, view the source and check out the coders comments -- like the pending "To Do" lists...

Official campaign website

http://www.barackobama.com

Related websites (some official, some not?)

Social Media

Hillary Clinton

Very well done site, quite polished and professional. Her copywriting, unfortunately is really jingoistic and the the placement of the Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute box above the fold on the home page smacks of trying a little too hard. Similarly you have to laugh at the Spanish link at the top right -- instead of giving you the entire website in Spanish, it simply jumps you to a bilingual article about Hugo Chavez (though there is some Spanish video available).

Her site makes the best use of video of any of the candidates (though Obama does well here, too) and seems to have the most prominent Fundraising efforts.

On the technical side of things, Hillary is our sole candidate running a .NET website.

Official campaign website

http://hillaryclinton.com

Related websites (some official, some not?)

Social Media

John McCain

Definitely the laggard in terms of adoption of social media, the McCain site lists no social media links. While it does offer the chance to build your own webpage there is little else in the way of community building. Interestingly, McCain's site, unlike the democratic contenders, makes no attempt to provide content focused on different ethnic groups. Indeed, with the exception of the "Irish for McCain" button in the McCain store ("be a shill for only $7.00!"), there is little recognition that the US is anything other than a homogenous demographic group.

Two other oddities of interest here: First, the website includes a page for "Basketball Brackets" -- evidently McCain's picks for basketball? Frankly I'm clueless on this as you have to register to see the content. Second, in the store you will also find for sale DVDs of "Faith of my Fathers" - a flag-waving McCain made-for-TV bio-pic.

I will give him credit for one thing: He's the only candidate that produces a dedicated web page on his spouse.

McCains' site is running on the WebSideStory CMS.