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Campaign 2008

Voter Registration Information

Black Youth Vote
Founded by National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Black Youth Vote! is a national grassroots coalition of organizations and individuals committed to increasing political and civic involvement among Black men and women aged 18-35. This youth led organization seeks to empower Black youth by educating them about the political process and training them to identify issues and influence public policy through participation

U.S. Electoral College: 2008 Presidential Election
Background about the Electoral College and the 2008 presidential election. The Electoral College is the process where "people of the United States vote for the electors who then vote for the President." View how votes are distributed among the states, state laws and requirements, and use the Electoral College calculator to predict who will win the election.

Vote 411.org
Information for every state on how and where to register to vote, eligibility requirements, getting absentee ballots, and everything you need to know about voting, including candidate information. The site is not fully operational yet, but eventually it will include ballot measures by state and location of polling places. From the League of Women Voters.

News Media

CNN’s Election Center 2008
CNN has a comprehensive website that covers each candidate, the primaries/caucuses, and tracks each candidate’s fundraising, and position on the issues. It also tracks the delegate count for each.

NPR: Election 2008
News coverage of the 2008 presidential election, with profiles of Republican and Democratic candidates and a primary and caucus calendar. Stories cover campaigns in specific states, issues and debates, campaign spending, voting, and related topics.

PBS: Vote 2008
PBS Online NewsHour's site features in-depth interviews with candidates (video, audio, and transcripts), a blog with campaign updates, news and analysis, and candidate profiles. Also includes a primary and caucus calendar, lesson plans, and links to other PBS programs covering the election. Also provides podcasts and specific newsfeeds (RSS) for states and candidates.

Yahoo’s Election 08 Presidential Election
News and analysis about the 2008 presidential election. Features material about candidates (with links to stories, photos, video and audio clips). Also links to other authoritative websites, and includes fundraising data, and a summary of where each candidate stands on selected issues.

Foreign Press Coverage

al-Jazeera
This well-designed site features a state by state election map, video clips of US election news, candidate profiles, a timeline of primaries and events leading up to the election, and a very basic explanation on the Q & A page of the U.S. electoral system. Included are news stories on issues of interest to the Middle East and a section on how Arab American feel about the election.

Financial Times In Depth: US Elections 2008
News and analysis about the 2008 U.S. presidential election, along with interactive features, candidate profiles and interviews, and other material about the election. From the Financial Times, a British publication that features world business, financial, and political news.

Vote USA 2008
News coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, from a British perspective. Provides news stories, background about presidential elections, candidate profiles, presidential primary and caucus dates, and analysis of issues that will shape the presidential race, such as the Iraq war, national security, immigration, and health care reform.

Campaign Issues

Campaign 2008: Issue Coverage Tracker
The Washington Post has created this issue coverage tracker to help sort out where the candidates stand on various issues. Visitors to the site can review press coverage and opinion writing on the various candidates and the major issues here. The issue tracker draws on a wide set of website sources across the political spectrum, including news services, interest groups, bloggers, unions, and activists.

Special Issues

Tavis Smiley’s All-American Presidential Forums
This website for a television broadcast for the 2008 presidential election "marks the first time that a panel comprised of journalists of color is represented in primetime." Features pages for campaign issues such as criminal justice, affordable neighborhoods, immigration, and environmental justice. Also includes videos, user questions and views, candidate profiles, and other election material.

Economic Choices '08
Compilation of reports, commentary, and blog entries providing "analysis of the business and economic impact of the 2008 [presidential] election." Some of the topics discussed are health care, NAFTA, mortgages and real estate foreclosures, investing, and taxes. From the "Nightly Business Report," a public television program that provides business news.

Geek the Vote 2008
From the website for Popular Mechanics magazine. Features coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election with an emphasis on science and technology issues. Find candidate proposals for issues such as automotive technology, digital privacy, energy, climate change, firearms, and infrastructure. Also includes related election news.

health08.org
Information about health care issues addressed by the presidential candidates in the 2008 presidential election. Features news, video clips, analysis, poll results, and side-by-side comparisons of the candidates' positions on health care issues (such as expansion of public programs, insurance premium subsidies, cost containment, and financing). Also includes links to campaign resources for each candidate. From the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

How Green Is Your Candidate?
Interviews, fact sheets, and other material "on the 2008 presidential candidates' energy plans and environmental positions." Includes details about voting records, comments, and positions on greenhouse gas emissions, coal power plants, nuclear power, fuel economy standards, and other energy and environmental topics. From Grist magazine; interviews are in conjunction with Outside magazine.

Youth-Oriented

Comedy Central's Indecision 2008
A humorous take on the 2008 presidential election. Features video clips of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's interviews with 2008 presidential candidates and Colbert's candidacy announcement, humorous candidate profiles, and a blog. Also links to other political humor websites & blogs.

MTV.Com Politics: Choose or Lose
Participate in forums, find out what the issues are and where the candidates stand. Links to getting involved, contacting officials, and registering to vote.

Rock the Vote
This group "is a non-profit, non-partisan organization, founded in 1990." It "engages youth in the political process by incorporating the entertainment community and youth culture into its activities." The site includes information about registering to vote and kits for organizing voter registration drives, links to information about selected issues, and a blog.

Scoop08
Website for a national student newspaper "dedicated to providing in-depth and innovative coverage of the 2008 presidential election." Features articles and editorials (in blog format) from student correspondents from universities and high schools across the country, descriptions of beats and how to get involved as a correspondent, and details about the contributors and advisors (journalism professors and journalists from national media outlets).

VoteGopher
This site was founded by a group of Harvard undergraduates with the purpose of providing a one-stop, easy, and non-partisan source for comparing the candidates' positions on the issues. You can compare candidates by their stand on various issues, and find biographical information on the leading candidates. Registration is not necessary unless you want to participate in online discussion.

Non-partisan

C-SPAN
With the headline of "Watch Politics," this site is a treasure trove of video clips of campaign ads, interviews, stories about the various candidates, and a library of political information.

Campaigns and Elections
This website is the online edition of a trade magazine for political professionals which features articles, profiles, a political blog directory and news. Some resources are restricted.

CQ Politics
Congressional Quarterly (CQ) has been covering political since 1945 and has a peerless reputation for objective, non-partisan and authoritative reporting on Congress and politics. Scroll about halfway down the page to the Election Toolkit with links to an election map, primary guide, a polltracker for data from the latest poll results, and links to other political websites. An interesting feature is the link to PolitiFact and its Truth-O-Meter to help sort out fact from fiction in political campaigns.

Pew Research Center: Election 08
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew conducts surveys and publishes special reports on many of the issues, like economics, and race and gender that are factors influencing this year’s presidential election.

Project Vote-Smart
Tracks the performance of more than 40,000 office holders and candidates for public office. Resources include voting records, issues information, background information including biographies, campaign finances and performance evaluations made by over 100 liberal to conservative special interest groups, and other groups. A great feature is the ability to type in your zip code and get back information on all your representatives, state and federal, including biographical, address, committee assignments, etc.

Poynteronline: Election Coverage
Coverage of elections in general and the 2008 presidential election in particular, with an emphasis on resources for journalists covering the election. Features background, reading suggestions, ideas for story angles, and other material of interest to journalists and also to general audiences. From the Poynter Institute.

The University of Michigan Documents Center: Elections 2008
This metasite includes background information; presidential, congressional, and state candidates; campaign links; policy issues; resources on elections and voting; and links to scholarly sources for further research.

Blogs, Videos & New Media

Face the Candidates on YouTube: You Choose '08
Compilation of videos featuring the 2008 U.S. presidential election candidates. Browse by candidate and by issues such as health care, energy, and the economy. Also includes videos of user-submitted ideas, opinions, and questions for the candidates. From YouTube.

Map the Candidates
The politically obsessed can use this website to track 2008 presidential candidate schedules and appearances back to July 2007. Configure custom views using timeline sliders, location zoom, and selection of specific candidates. Includes a news feed, videos, and instructions for using the application. From the online magazine Slate.

PoliticalBase
Want to find out how you match with the candidates on a variety of issues? Try the 2009 Primaries Quiz. This site is an online political forum and a stockpile of election data. It has features ranging from blogs and YouTube videos to campaign finance data displayed on a Google map. It is essentially a structured wiki which means users can edit much of the text but cannot change the underlying database. Users can correlate data and create comparison charts and maps.

techPresident Blog
There's no denying the huge impact the Web will have on the 2008 presidential race. To respond to the new political trend and keep candidates on their technological toes, the Presidential Democracy Forum started the Tech President blog. The site keeps tabs on campaign sites, postings on YouTube, and how each candidates' friend pool on social-networking sites is growing (or not). TechPresident was started as a new group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web, and vice versa, how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign.

PrezVid Blog
The pundits and talking heads have all proclaimed that much of the upcoming presidential election campaign will play out on the Internet -- specifically, on YouTube. Jeff Jarvis is following the YouTube campaigns on his PrezVid blog, on which he adds his own (text-based) commentary to YouTube clips of the candidates' TV appearances, stump speeches, gaffes, and rallies.

Watchdog & Fact-checking

The Campaign Legal Center
This website says it "represents the public interest in enforcement of campaign and media law."
To do this it follows and initiates legal action on issues such as campaign finance, election law, political ethics and communications. There are weekly reports, a blog and links to articles, court cases and legislation.

Campaign Money
On this site you can find campaign finance data, including searching for contributions by zip code, individual name or address, and political action committees. Special reports include contributions made by celebrities, industries, companies, and more.

Factcheck.org
Factcheck is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics by monitoring the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. The goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.

Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency that administers and enforces the statute that governs the financing of federal elections. Its duties include disclosing campaign finance information, enforcing the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and oversight of the public funding of Presidential elections. You can obtain campaign finance information via easy to use maps of the USA for both Presidential and House and Senate Elections through September 30, 2007.

Nieman Watchdog Project
The Nieman Watchdog Project seeks to encourage reporters and editors to monitor and hold accountable those who exert power in all aspects of public life by asking what's happening, why it happened, who's involved, who's affected and what happens next. On their homepage, they offer recent commentaries on issues that may not be receiving enough critical coverage in the media, along with links to compelling blogs. The site is rounded out by a search engine and by their own in-house blog.

Open Secrets.org
Sponsored by the Center for Responsive Politics, this site conducts computer-based research on campaign finance issues. You can track who gives and who gets money -- e.g. by candidate, by industry, as well as on the local level. The Center’s work is aimed at creating a more educated voter, an involved citizenry, and a more responsive government.

Political Party Websites

Democratic Party

Green Party

Libertarian Party

Republican Party

Created by Celia Bouchard, Reference Librarian