The Web on the Candidates

• A new web site, health08.org, is billing itself as a "hub for information about health care and the presidential campaign" and it truly is. Started by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the site offers an impressive amount of information about how health care is impacting the election, and details the candidates' stances on the issue. In addition to links to videos, campaign events, polls, and analysis of health care as an election-year issue, the site also includes a page for every Democratic and Republican candidate, with links to their sites' sections on health care, relevant videos, press releases, and news articles. It's refreshing to see a substantive site so dedicated to a single issue; health care is shaping up to be the dominant domestic issue this year, and health08 is looking like voters' most essential resource.

The Candidates on the Web

• Rudy finally steps up to the plate: Rudy Giuliani, who's online presence has been pretty lackluster thus far, is actually using the web to -- gasp! -- try to engage online voters. This week he issued Rudy's Baseball Challenge, a fundraising game that asks supporters to "help Rudy build the team by raising $25 from nine friends," which will score you a Team Rudy pennant. But there's more: "For the teams reaching $2,008 or more, we'll send you a signed original Rudy baseball card. And for the teams that raise $5,000 or more, we'll send you a baseball personally autographed by Rudy!" It's a pretty simple challenge, and Rudy isn't the first candidate to utilize the baseball metaphor, but for a candidate with a private MySpace page and no Facebook profile, it's a start.
• A new study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism asks the "provocative" question, are the candidates' websites "propaganda or news?" (um, I guessing the former...) The study explores four elements of 19 candidates' sites: how did each site engage with its users; how are the sites attempting to "bypass the filter of traditional media, becoming their own information outlets"; what are the different ways the sites try to reach voters beyond being traditional sites (basically, blogs); and what words are the candidates using to describe themselves. I found two strands of datum particularly illuminating. First, according to the study the higher-tier a candidate, the fewer issues represented on the website. John Edwards' site "features the fewest issues (six)," but "Dennis Kucinich has the most (91), and is the only candidate to talk about hemp and animal rights." Second, the language of the Republican candidates use to describe themselves is markedly different from that of the Democrats. "The GOP bios emphasize 'leadership,' 'taxes,' and 'values;' Democrats stress 'children,' 'family' and 'protect.' And Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to name the party to which they belong."

In Case You Missed It...

What keeps Patrick Ruffini up at night? The fact that "online fundraising will explode come the general election, on both sides. The question is whether [the Republicans will] rise enough to keep up with it."

Ari Melber thinks MoveOn's issue-driven virtual primary could be "more substantive, thoughtful and participatory than the actual presidential primary."