This weekend I took an hour to review all the candidates sites as if I were coming to them ignorant -- simply using the web (as many will) to decide who to support. I assumed that I would start trying to figure out, "why are they running for President?" and then dig deeper. I did not use the bio sections of the site, but the structure and initial text. This is the superficial first pass. What, in two words, is the core message of each site?

Joseph Biden: Presidential Candidate (??)
Sam Brownback: Patriotic Christian
Hillary Clinton: Female Winner
Chris Dodd: Comfortable Senator
John Edwards: Active Visionary
Rudy Giuliani: Happy Crime-fighter
Mike Huckabee: Likeable Conservative
Dennis Kucinich: Outsider Pacifist
Barack Obama: Bipartisan Rock-Star
Ron Paul: Nostalgic Conservative
Bill Richardson: Diplomatic Diplomat
Mitt Romney: Active Innovator
Tom Tancredo: Bold Anti-Immigrant

I don’t think I got Dodd quite right – he sounds so comfortable and intimate, but intimate in the way a Senator is, not a friend. What messages do you see (from the websites alone, and not just the slogans)? What two word descriptions would you use? It can be a hard effort, because we know so much about these candidates. I find few of these messages accurate, and some less inspiring than the candidate themselves, but its also interesting to see where the web message diverges from the candidates' speeches – it suggests to me that the web team is not sitting outside the candidates door.