Unlike any other presidential election in past history, keeping tabs on this years election progress online, provides access to real time information than traditional media methods used in the past. From having the news pushed to your computer, to following the chatter on Twitter or using Google maps, you can pretty much choose how and when you want to keep up with the latest presidential election news.
Here are 5 ways to keep track of the election noise with out getting bored by the typical media TV coverage.
1. RSS Feeds - just about all the news outlets and other sites dedicated to covering the presidential race, provide an RSS feed that you can easily view with your favorite RSS reader. I use Google reader and adding a site feed is simple.
Just visit a site that you want to keep tabs on the political news and look for the RSS icon 
which can usually be found in the address field or in the right or left navigation on the web page. Once you add it, you can set the view to list just the title and scan the headlines quickly as shown in Google Reader.
2. Want to know where the presidential candidates campaign money is coming from? Then the site Political Base has the answers for you with an awesome Google map where you can search for a list of the big name contributors or just mouse over any area on the map.
Pretty impressive. Don't forget to scroll down below the map and view campaign contributions from the Rich and Famous.
3. If you a crazy about campaign statistics, then you need to check out FiveThirtyEight. This site has every political stat about the presidential race you can imagine. Election night will never be the same. To really get the full effects of this site, your going to need a bigger monitor. Stats include numbers and information on the latest polls, news, projections, charts, graphs, everything. Bookmark this site.
4. Something on your mind, or you want to voice your opinion to the two candidates? Then the site What would You Say To… is your online platform to do just that to either Barack Obama or John McCain. You can have your say with text, or if you are really ambitious you can upload a video. You can also view other people opinions and participate in the polls they are running. Oh, don't forget to bid George bush good bye and leave him a message also (I love the countdown timer on his page).
5. This Presidential race to the White House is not the only job up for grabs in this election. Seats in the House, Senate and Governor are also at stake, and NPR has you covered on the current outlook with a map for each race. Just mouse over each State to see the current candidates from each party for that State and use the tabs oat the top of mouse to see the outlook for each category.
6. Podcasts and Videos - Obviously if you want spoofs, serious news, laughs, or anything, You Tube has it all. Already there are some great videos to see, just use their search and your imagination to view anything (and I mean anything). And for you MP3 or IPOD fans, never miss an interview or special report of the cmapaign trail. Almost all the big News sites have podcasts, and if you can't find it, just go to the front door of the Internet…Google and search for it.
That's it for now, I'm sure there are a ton of other great sites out there to keep up to date. Know one, leave a comment below.
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