I always love it when Google changes their basic logo to commemorate holidays and special days. Thanksgiving has meant a riff on a turkey sitting on a sofa, Edvard Munch's birthday warranted a version of his Scream painting, and so on (check out the archive of special Google logos here).

So it was fun to see their haunted house-style logo every time I did a search today for Halloween, that most secular of national holidays:

Other sites got into the action too, throwing up a pumpkin or some other fun in recognition of Halloween.

Technorati added an evil jack-o-lantern to its logo:

And YouTube offered up their own pumpkinized creation:

Given that the candidates' web presences are so central to their campaigns, you'd think they'd show little ghoulish spirit, right?

Nope. Only John Edwards and Joe Biden made references to Halloween.

Biden used scary jack-o-lanterns to promote a new video. Boo!

And Edwards was more creative, producing a mockup of the "Scary Times," so named for the possibility of a Giuliani presidency, that links to -- you guessed it -- a fundraising page. Eek!

Why are not other candidates playing along? Are they too serious to have a little fun? Are the Republicans afraid to offend religious conservatives? Come on folks, let your blue-hairsprayed hair down!