Search for America: A Presidential Campaign Website Review

I visited the web sites of the top nine Presidential candidates left in the race...

Bill Richardson just dropped out.

Okay. I visited the web sites of the top eight Presidential candidates left in the race to see which of them allowed users to search their sites. First thing I noticed: they all have a blue background. Except John McCain's web site, which has a black background, because he's a maverick.

I resisted the temptation of fully reviewing each candidate's web site. While there is great appeal in spending several hours analyzing each site's layout, color scheme, organization, and pictures of Muslims holding AK-47s (advantage: Rudy!) so I could to create a comprehensive review that would gather, all in one place, a bunch of crap almost no one cares about, I decided to focus on just one aspect.

Does McBama-Hillarudy-Ronbee's web site have a search bar?

Yes, the gold standard achievement in the “I Barely Give a Shit” class. Did they bother to insert an extremely useful function that is on almost every other web page on the Internet? Let's find out.

As a comparison point, I picked a random web page on the Internet: “Pancake City.” Does “Pancake City” have a search bar? Yes, it does. Is it near the top of the page and easy to find? Yes.

Pancake City is the front runner. In response to the site's new status, I have disabled comments and will stop taking questions from the press. I will resume friendly relations with the press once my poll numbers slip, as they have in the past 437 elections when a candidate surged in popularity and became overly cautious and guarded out of fear of screwing it all up.

Democrats

Hillary Clinton: No search bar.

Barack Obama: Dude, you gave a detailed technology speech at Google and then fielded questions from the employees. WHERE IS THE SEARCH BAR?

John Edwards: Search bar, but at the bottom of the page. Clearly labeled. (2^nd place)

Republicans

Rudy Giuliani: I would like to point out that I hate writing about Rudy Giuliani, because I can never remember how to spell his name. I end up having to type something like “Giulaniuani” in Google and hope it recognizes who I am searching for. No search bar.

Mitt Romney: Search bar! Top of the page! The only major candidate to have a search bar near the top of his or her web page. This is True Strength for America's Future. (1^st place)

John McCain: Search bar at the bottom of the page. A real maverick would have put it sideways. (3^rd place)

Mike Huckabee: Mike Hucka-be better putting a search bar on his web page soon. No search bar.

Ron Paul: Ronbots, what happened? The web page is snazzy, attractive, and well-designed. Except no search bar. What am I going to do when I'm drunk and looking for a plan to privatize roads?

I'm leaving Fred Thompson out. That guy is phoning it in more than Leno on most nights. Instead of campaigning 12 hours a day, he's pulling up near prospective voters in his red pickup truck, yelling “Hey, I'm Fred!” and then speeding off to his limo parked around the corner.

Here's the big question: Is the lack of a search bar on these lavishly-funded, professionally-designed web pages an oversight, or were they deliberately left out for some nefarious yet stupid reason, like wanting to control how their visitors access information? Is search too "off message" for most campaigns?