Presidential Widgets: Politics As Unusual

The fact that 2008, The Year of the Widget, is on a crash-collision-course with the 2008 United States Presidential Election hasn’t alluded the candidates, their internet-savvy pundits and wonkette junkies alike. Given all the political discourse we’re in store for over the next 10 months, it’s good to see that several non-partisan widget developers have the president’s office clearly in their sites to keep us all informed of the latest mudrucking.

For those who are firmly behind a candidate, widgetnest makes the 2008 Presidential Candidates widget to help you keep track of your man, or woman. Featuring headline links to latest news, directly from the candidate camp, whether you’re for Ron Paul, Joe Biden or Tom Tancredo, widgetnest makes a presidential widget for you. Cautionary note, if the number of installs correlates in anyway with the popular vote, it looks like Huckabee could run away with the race according to widgetnest’s stats (the company does note that the counter has been discontinued).

A funny thing happened to me when I installed the Obama widget on my Facebook profile – I felt like I was out-in-the-open, revealing where I stood. Even if he doesn’t get my vote, it was a declaration for all the social networking world to see. So, in addition to keeping the electoral base informed, presidential widgets, like campaign buttons and bumperstickers of yesteryear, are just as much an expression about who we are and where we stand.

But for those who don’t know where they stand, which according to some polls is close to 35% of eligible voters, developer Tim Hogan has created the Presidential Election 2008 widget, a nonpartisan general and candidate focused search that filters through RSS news, blog and forum information on each candidate. Built as a specialized Swicki widget from Eureka, the service allows its users to create a custom social search portal on the topic of their choice and offers digg-style user-generated voting on every article. So, in theory, with every search, vote and click, the swicki generates more relevant results and turns into a shared-knowledge resource to be spread virally via “get this widget” installer tab.

USA Presidential Candidates 2008 Search and Grazr

2008 Election Al Gore Bill Richardson Chris Dodd Fred Thompson George Pataki Hillary Clinton Jim Gilmore Joe Biden John Edwards John McCain Mike Gravel Mike Huckabee Mitt Romney Newt Gingrich Ron Paul Rudy Giuliani Sam Brownback Tom Tancredo Tommy Thompson

Dedicated Search Engines Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Giuliani, Hunter, Kucinich, McCain, Obama, Paul, Romney, Richardson, Tancredo

News, Blog and Forum info

This is the first year that we can measure the true impact of widgets on a presidential election. Regardless of who wins, one thing is certain, widgets will forever change the speed at which a candidate can take his/her message to the people. Never again will it be politics as usual.