Much beauty to behold this election cycle on top of the previously mentioned items, CNN has a super-clean, tightly organized “results” section that you can customize to track the races that are most relevant to you.

The NY Times also has done some top notch work, including this just released large format election overview video.

And they say truth is stranger than fiction.

The Times is at it again with a revealing and simultaneously amusing “entergraphic” not “infographic” that sums up a slice of political endorsements via a Sgt. Pepper-esque cut-and-paste job. The difference in support for Obama and say, Huckabee is striking.

A survey of the political landscape from a web perspective reveals a profound evolution that has taken place in terms of quality and user experience. Top sites from “web-aware” candidates show an engaged environment that’s not just pushing agenda, but taking the deep dive into “the now.”

From a quick scan of the top contenders on both sides, it seems that the Democrat front-runners and Republican Ron Paul have taken key points from the Howard Deans of the political landscape by aggressively pursuing their social online communities, taking full advantage of this strategy. On the Republican side, with the exception of Paul, the campaigns are lackluster and vanilla, looking as if they are still 4 to 8 years behind the Dems. They obviously aren’t seeing the benefit of connecting with thousands of potential voters and by focusing their online audiences. The Republicans (minus Paul) look like they are out of touch or just don’t care. Most likely both, since it looks like they’ve invested next to nothing on developing distinguished milieux.

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