As the 2008 presidential campaign enters the final throes, find out how the two candidates' websites compare.

IN A NUTSHELL

These sites serve essentially the same purpose: acquiring votes and dollars, not necessarily in that order. Each is packed with donation opportunities via either campaign contributions or the purchase of official merchandise ($15 scores a first-edition Obama-Biden car magnet!) and tries, in as little space as possible, to leave a good impression of its candidate. If the four donation buttons and two mailing-list signup buttons on McCain’s home page feel overwhelming, Obama takes things a step further, presenting a signup page that one must fill out or actively skip before moving on to his home page. There, he offers a donation button, two voter-registration links, and two volunteer links.

BRAVO

Both sites are well-crafted, each hewing toward the tone its candidate is trying to set. For Obama that means an emphasis on issues, with extensive detail about 23 proposed policies (up to 15 pages each), from the economy to ethics. Many contain video clips of speeches he’s made and summaries of his experience with the topic, and some contain links labeled “Present your ideas,” which offer users a forum with which to respond. Even if the resulting replies are read by nobody but campaign interns, they at least offer the appearance of genuine interaction.

Obama’s unique front-page features are links for disaffected Hillary supporters (basically just another signup form, plus a space to “share your story”) and a section titled “Fight the Smears,” in which various rumors about Obama are debunked. Each rumor page offers a tool to send the corresponding fact-correcting article to up to 10 people.

McCain’s site, while somewhat lighter on issues, fulfills its goal of pushing the campaign’s theme, blasting users with “Country First” at every opportunity. A stack of rotating information blocks on the left side fits a significant amount of material into a relatively small space (McCain’s front page is less than half as long as Obama’s), including links to recruit five friends, campaign updates, and volunteer opportunities by state. This grouping’s lone issue is a page devoted to McCain’s proposed economic policies, titled “Jobs for America.”

While Obama’s site barely makes mention of his opponent, McCain spends copious space on Obama. This includes a 15-point list of issues and a “Find the Truth” quiz that takes Obama to task (even the title of McCain’s charitable-links page, “A Cause Greater Than Self Interest,” echoes his campaign theme that Obama’s primary concern is his own rise to power). The information amid the strong language is limited to the tiniest, context-free snippets, but the tone is unmistakably on message.

TRY AGAIN

McCain’s site tries to appeal toward user interaction with promises of “points” for various helpful tasks (such as monetary donations), which can be collected as some sort of increasingly impressive Republican totem. It goes so far as to prominently display a point-collection tabulator on the home page, but the system is never explained—what points are, how they’re acquired, and what can be done with them.

While the McCain site offers an impressive amount of speech video, it’s fairly well hidden. The day after vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin addressed the Republican National Convention, for example—a moment generally identified as vital to the campaign’s success—McCain’s site provided a comprehensive page with a full transcript, video highlights, and video of the entire speech. The problem is that there was no link to it from the front page; one level down, on the News & Media page, it registered only as the nondescript 11th link in a list of 17; two levels down it wasn’t even mentioned on the Multimedia page, and on the adjacent Speeches page it rated only as one of 50, organized chronologically.

Where McCain’s site succeeds best—pushing the campaign theme of “Country first”—Obama’s fails entirely. His campaign slogans, “Change we can believe in” and “Change we need” have appeared on placards and lecterns throughout his campaign, but the word “change” can be found in only two places on his home page, one in a voter-registration link and another in the smallest type on the page, in the middle of a two-sentence quote. His site might deliver quality information, but is absent a consistent theme.

Overall, each site reflects its candidate fairly well, in that supporters should love it and opponents will likely be appalled. There’s plenty of meat to be found in each for those who are still making up their minds, but which one best strikes the appropriate tone is a matter best decided in November.