Candidates and Online Communities

The presidential candidates are trying to engage NG's culture of participation through presence on popular online community sites. Here's what's happening with the three major presidential candidates:

Clinton's home page features logo links to six "Communities" sites; here is Clinton's Facebook page.

McCain's home page appears devoid of such links and a press release on McCain's online initiatives was the only thing turned up by a site search. McCain's Facebook link in that release trips up on the Facebook login.

Visitors to Obama's site are greeted with a sign-up splash page, declining the sign-up gets you to Obama's home page with an "Obama Everywhere" block featuring text links to sixteen communities. Here is Obama's Facebook page.

ABC's Facebook Political Pulse page shows that Obama has 3X the number of Facebook supporters as Clinton and McCain combined.  I've seen no credible analysis of how well an online community presence translates into contributions or votes; Howard Dean's 2004 experience is a cautionary tale.