When I come to a candidate’s website, I want to get offline as quickly as possible. I want to know when and where the next meeting is, and I don’t want to have to sign up for email updates in order to get there. I only want to go to public meetings – I’m not going to eat tea-cake in someone’s home while I’m still making up my mind. I want the same thing from candidates I am curious about as well as those I support. The two Burlington Obama meetings I’ve been to have been full of people who were O-curious, but not committed (like me), and several people who were actively supporting another candidate – this seems right to me. Political action shouldn’t wait until after political decisions, but coincide with them – and candidate decisions should be made in thoughtful conversations with other citizens who have no agenda but good government.

So I set out to find—on each Democratic candidate site—local, free event in public places where I could hear citizen-supporters talk. I assumed, for the sake of the experiment, that I lived in Boston, not Burlington. (All of these candidates by now have at least a handful of supporters in Boston who either are meeting or want to meet -- it’s a solvable problem, if candidates are interested in it.) This may not sound like a technological search at all, but this is a problem that technology can play a major role in solving, because it’s a database problem.

So how do the candidates’ sites rate in helping me find this? B to F. (I do not consider no event-searching a reasonable option, because even the poorest candidate can link out to another event-planning site.)

I list the links I followed for each, trying to click like a normal person. If I have missed something important, please let me know, and I’ll update this. Republican sites next week….

Biden

Email signup (skipped)→Home→Get Involved→Join the Campaign→Dead End.

Rating: F

Clinton

Home Page→Find Party/Event→Zip Code Entry-->Planning Party at “Michael’s Apartment” in Providence on April 25th.

It was much easier to get to events from her site than any of the others. You can enter your zip code from the home page. Granted, I’m not going to go to a private event -- let alone one in April-- but it was easy, straightforward, and simple to navigate without signing up.

Rating: B+.

Edwards

Home Page→Events→Nothing Local, back to→Home Page→One Corps→Enter Zip→No upcoming events

There is a possibility of finding events, but most of the events seem to presume my support, and I’m still in the exploratory, citizenship stage. I can search for chapters by zip, but not for events by zip. Even on the One Corps page, it asks me to sign up before telling me where to go. Points for public service, however. Rating: C+

Dodd

Home page→Get Involved→No events→Home→Dead End.

A person can’t find a hope of an event on this site. Rating: F

Kucinich

Home page→Volunteer→No events→Home→Schedule→Nothing Local→Dead End.

Kucinich should know better. Rating: F

Obama

Home Page→Get Involved→No Events, back to→Home→Events→Required signup (skip to “Events” on right hand side of page, ignoring requirement→Zip→Evolution Café in Florence Mass is having a coffee at 11 AM

I found a public event, but it took several steps and my own conviction I could find it without giving up my email address – most people who are not committed to Obama will leave far sooner.

Rating: C+.

Vilsack

Home Page→Attend an Event→Nothing in Boston→Home→Main Street Meetings Link→No events listed – I can only volunteer to host a meeting on February 26th→ Dead end.

Rating: F

What would it take to get an A? Two clicks and a zip code and I'm there and its nearby and public. The music isn’t so loud I can’t talk. It would be neat if the place is near public transportation. And while I’ll do it if necessary, I would rather not go to an event run by a paid political junkie from out of state who has a running tape in his head about how he’s going to report back to his supervising field organizer about how enthusiastic everyone was and how many people he signed up. It would be nice if someone had news about the campaign, and some structure, and I’d like between 5-20 people there – over 20 and its easier feel like I’m at a rally.

And it never hurts to in a place where you can have a drink -- so long as the 18 year olds are welcome.