The Forum

Need information on your candidate in the Presidential 2008 Election?Have you been watching the Republican and Democratic debates? Do you think Bill Clinton is teaming up with Hillary against Barack Obama? Is your favorite candidate still running or have they dropped out of the race?While ten years ago people got their political information mainly from newspapers and television, people now use the Internet as a major source of information. Each candidate has his or her own website as well as various political organizations. With the growth of weblogs and other social networking, people often use YouTube and MySpace in this decade.There are a number of Internet sites with useful information about the 2008 presidential candidates, election and the political process. Many of these resources include RSS feeds and public forum or blog comments from members of the general public. This article highlights some sites you may find interesting and useful.· Campaign Legal Center “Representing the public interest in enforcement of campaign and media law.” This nonprofit nonpartisan center follows and initiates legal action on issues, including campaign finance, election law, political communication and ethics. The site includes a blog, weekly reports and links to related articles from court cases and legislation. Access: www.camlc.org/.· Federal Election Commission This site provides information about legal and regulatory rules relating to federal campaign finance issues. Its searchable Disclosure Database is the original source of all the campaign finance data provided by other groups. The FEC also delivers a campaign finance page (http://www.fec.gov/DisclosureSearch/mapA.do) with an interactive map showing how much money certain states have contributed to the cause.Access: www.fec.gov/index.shtml/.· Politico and Campus Politico “Meet and Track the Candidates” This extensive political news site from Capital News Company covers the presidential campaign and other political events and issues. The site includes an extensive list of websites for each candidate, video clips and an open forum for commentary. Campus Politico focuses on college-age voters and includes links to social networking sites and downloadable widgets that provide updated blog postings from Politico writers. Access: http://www.politico.com/campuspolitico/· “The 51^st State: The State of Online” This article by Laura Gordon-Murnane appeared in the November/December issue of Searcher and has been made publicly available. The article provides a listing of the technological and social features that are available on presidential campaign websites as of late summer 2007 and analyses how candidates, media and voters are using these tools.Access: http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/nov07/Gordon-Murnane_51stState.pdf/.· Pollster “All about Polls” Political polling permeates the political season, yet rarely is provided with any context beyond the basic horse race results. Pollster tracks, aggregates, and analyzes political polls (including presidential, congressional and gubernatorial races). The site provides links to other polling and survey research groups and resources, and has a very helpful FAQ page that explains how political polling is done. Access: http://www.pollster.com/.· CampaignMoney This site allows visitors to find campaign finance data, including searching for contributions by zip code, individual name or address and political action committees, as well as post opinions about candidates. Special reports include contributions made by celebrities, industries, companies and more.Access: http://www.campaignmoney.com/· Project Vote Smart One of the first political information sites on the Web, Project Vote Smart provides an extensive amount of information about elected officials, including voting records (congressional and legislative), special interest group performance evaluations, campaign finance data and issue positions from the Political Courage Test (formerly known as the National Political Awareness Test). The site also provides general political information, including voter registration information, information on statewide ballot measures and links to other resources.Access: http://www.vote-smart.org/.· Fact Checker The goal of this Washington Post site is to “shed as much light as possible on controversial claims and counter-claims involving important national issues, such as the war in Iraq, immigration, health care, social issues, the economy and the records of the various presidential candidates.” The 2008 Campaign includes videos, political blogs and information on each candidate, including financial data. The Post’s information seems to be very balanced.Access: http://factcheck.org/.· Open Secrets Look up who and the amount they donated to candidates, how much money was raised and spent on campaign finances and the personal finances of candidates. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) supplies campaign finance information to other political information services, but its own website, Open Secrets, covers more territory. In addition to data about campaign contribution donors and recipients, lobbying and advocacy group spending, the site includes databases covering financial disclosure, the revolving door between door between industry and government agencies and congressional travel. CRP’s online newsletter “Capital Eye” provides news and analysis articles about the role of money in politics.Access: http://opensecrets.org/.· Politifact A project of the St. Petersburg Times and CQ (Congressional Quarterly), this site uses scorecards, fact sheets and articles to review claims made by candidates (the Truth-O-Meter) and attacks from opponents (the Attack File). The site includes ratings on some claims, using a six-point scale that ranges from “True” to “Pants on Fire.” They also offer a twice-weekly e-mail service that delivers “meter readings” to your e-mail box. Access: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/.(Information found at Lorena O’English, Election 2008 Resources, 69 College & Research Libraries News, 1 (Jan. 2008).Submitted by Gail Hartzell, Acquisitions and Serials Librarian, gail.hartzell@valpo.edu

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