Politics Sites Galore On The Web

So many debates, ads, and analysis on politics. Sorting through it all on the Internet can be a real challenge.

For that, many are turning to the Internet.

But how can you find objective information?

Who are we most similar to? And -- guess who the neighbors are backing?!

Turns out, that info and much more can be found online, and at some unbiased sites.

On The Early Show Tuesday, AOL Consumer Adviser Regina Lewis pointed to many.

Politics, she says, has come a long way on the Web. In addition to the major news sites and political shows, there are some specific sites with unique approaches for getting primed for primaries and set for the general election.

As is always the case with political information, it's important to consider the source. Partisan blogs abound.

The following sites don't play favorites, but they do put some intriguing facts at your fingertips: What campaigns have the neighbors given money to? Which candidate gets more YouTube views? Which candidate best matches up with your opinions?

It's all out there, and Americans are tracking it down in record numbers. In fact, the number of people getting political news online has doubled since the 2004 race, and tripled since 2000, according to a recent survey by the non-partisan Pew Research Center tracking public opinion.

SITES TO GET PRIMED FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

www.electoralcompass.com
http://www.reginalewis.com/2008/02/20/if-you-were-in-the-oval-office
Which candidate do you best match up with? They ask you a series of 36 questions on issues including Iraq, Iran, taxes, gun control, global warming, education, etc. Then, they plot your views on a Republican/Democrat axis to see where & how you skew overall & by issue. Takes a matter of minutes & is pretty telling ... Essentially, you "vote" the way you would in the White House and weight how strongly you feel about a given topic (Neutral, Tend to Disagree, Strongly Agree, etc.). Then, they tell you which candidate best matches up with your views. It is representation, after all.

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com
Who are the neighbors giving money to? This is one sure does give you an inside look at which households are writing checks to support candidates & how much they're writing them for. I've got some generous friends, neighbors & colleagues. These days of course, many people aren't writing checks, they're donating online with one click. You can even sign up to give an amount on a recurring basis (i.e. $50 a month). To see who is up to this, you can search by street address, zip code, or company name. Arianna Huffington's site. http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com is quick to point of some celebrities are playing both sides of the fence, supporting multiple candidates. And Huff Post suggests you can use this clever tool to find out if the new guy you're dating is really a Republican or just dresses like on.e Not that I would ever do such a thing;) Having said that, it looks like some of the data is not up to date.

Hot Seat: http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/02/12/hot-seat-obama-responds-to-aol-poll
Are Huge Online Polls Telling? Can that many People be Wrong? With so much controversy around how the official polls heading into the New Hampshire primary were so off, it's interesting to look at online polls like the HUGE number of votes garnered in the daily HOT SEAT (Http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/02/25/hot-seat-obamas-advantage-over-mccain) poll, which you can actually "snag" & post on your site. With hundreds of thousands of votes on any give day, it's interesting to see how your own opinion matches up on a percentage base. In total, you've got to think these polls might -- arguably -- be one of the better barometers of public opinion and perhaps a precursor to what will really end up happening in the general election. The new Hot Seat phenomenon had garnered such attention, even Barack Obama has personally responded to some of the poll results.

CaglePost.com - Political Cartoons Daryl Cagle's (former National Cartoonists Society president) has his own fully-loaded cartoon site. It's fun to look through the archives. You can even hire one of the artists (http://cagle.com/artists) if you want to commission something specific.

Truveo.com http://www.truveo.com/2008-election-videos
Must-see Political Viral Videos. It's like Google for Video and they've just added an ELECTIONS area where you can cut to the chase and easily find videos being searched for online -- everything from stump speeches to ads and behind-the-scenes clips for better or worse. On Truveo, you can go to the most popular viral videos for each candidate. We are going to show some of them:
*For Obama - "Obama Girl"
*for Clinton - Sopranos Spoof
*for mccain - You little Jerk

Then, there are the official sites for each of the candidateS, which is like a Christmas card for each candidate. They all differ, but you can learn a lot about them by reading them.