I won’t pretend to be the political expert of this blog. In that regard I most certainly defer to Taylor. But I have been intrigued by the increasing degree to which politics are being practiced and discussed on the web during this election cycle. The candidates have Facebook profiles, for crying out loud! Four years ago, that statement would not have even made sense to most people. I’m not saying that the Internet has replaced the time-tested traditions of town hall meetings and door-to-door campaigning in battleground states. But it is playing an increasingly important role in campaign strategy, nonetheless.
Besides being a campaign medium, the Internet is also proving to be an excellent source of relatively objective information about the candidates. As we enter full force into primary season, I wanted to take a minute to point you to some useful websites that are helping voters make their choices.
- PoliticalBase - A wiki-style site that allows you to both browse and edit information about the candidates and the issues at stake. Especially useful is a grid that offers a user-friendly — though woefully generalized — comparison of the candidates’ platforms. PoliticalBase offers a “Who Should I Vote for in 2008?” quiz that matches you up with like-minded candidates. In its profile of the site, CrunchBase also notes that “PoliticalBase has collected public information on presidential donations made by individuals. Click on any state and then click on a county and see information on each individual contribution, down to the last dollar.”
- GlassBooth - GlassBooth’s name reflects both its commitment to transparent, non-partisan balance and the stripped-down, Google-y appearance of its site. This site heavily promotes its quiz, which is innovative in that it measures the value that the user attaches to the issues before generating a set of questions asking his or her position on those issues. GlassBooth also features a page that lets you drill down into the candidates’ positions on different issues via voting records, proposed and passed legislation, quotes, and video clips.
- U.S. Politics Application for Facebook - A joint venture with ABC, this application features polls, “debate groups” (basically, a means for expressing one’s position on a certain issue), links to ABC News stories, and a “Soundboard” during key moments of the campaign that allow users to post their quick thoughts in a real-time ticker. Users can also “support” candidates in a process similar to “friending.” While an interesting feature for the social network, I don’t see any real value coming out of this application besides serving as a portal for ABC News and a source of heavily biased polls.
- Google Maps Caucus and Primary Results -The Google LatLong Blog announced that Google Maps would feature layers streaming real-time results from the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries. While I was never able to get results on the map for Iowa even when Obama and Huckabee were claiming victory, I was able to log on earlier tonight to see a moderately useful, color-coded view of county-by-county results for New Hampshire. Hopefully Google will continue to improve the reliability and usefulness of this feature as the primary season rumbles along.
I am sure there are countless other sites similar to these (for example, the ones provided by the websites of almost every national newspaper and TV chain) that prove equally useful. These are just the independent ones that I’ve explored so far. I’d love, however, to hear about the other sites you are using to help you make and justify your political choices. Give me some linkage in the comments and tell me what you like about them!
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(P.S. - I can’t resist. I got props from Fake Steve Jobs for submitting a photo to be captioned on his blog! What an honor! Namaste, FSJ. And for those of you who are rolling your eyes and thinking, “Man, Jarred is such a nerd”… well… FSJ puts it best: Siooma, suckers. Because I honor the place where the Apple cult and my soul become one. Peace out.)
Images used under Creative Commons licenses courtesy of Flickr users yerffej9 and langhorn.
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