I signed up for accounts with most of the campaign Web sites several months ago and honestly haven’t been back since. Then yesterday I thought about seeing what I could do with some of the accounts and so I began visiting the sites. I was struck by something, on most of the campaign sites I could ’sign-up’ for an account but not ’sign-in’ on the main page.

Usually when you go to a social networking or just regular old Web site with an account system you are greeted with a “welcome so and so” message which lets you know you are logged in. If you aren’t logged in you can either ’sign-up’ for a new account or ’sign-in’. Not so on most candidates sites where if you aren’t logged in it takes some time to figure out how to get there.

On all of the Democratic candidate sites an immediate “login” link or form boxes are not available on the main pages. Now on some sites you have to click the sign-up button in order to login. I don’t know why but you do with certain content management systems. So I figured I would try. It only worked for Richardson where once you hit signup you are then taken to a new page where you can either get an account or login if you have an account. No other Democratic candidate has this on their main page.

For Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, Biden you must enter an e-mail address and zip code and get a new account. For Biden’s page you can click on the sign-up link without entering anything and you are presented with a ‘Thank You’ screen instead of an error message saying you didn’t fill out the fields correctly. Somebody needs to fix the script!

With Kucinich I can contribute or receive a newsletter with not much more for interaction, same for Mike Gravel. Not surprising considering their fundraising.

If you want a link that says “login” for Clinton you need to hit the drop-down menu under ‘Take Action’. One doesn’t exist for Barack Obama but you can hit ‘Get Involved’ and then hit ‘My.Barack.Obama.com” to login. Nothing I can see takes you from the main page to a login screen on Edwards or the other candidates sites.

I just found it funny as this is one of the most basic things that appear on just about any commerce or social networking site. The idea if you want people logged in so you can see what they are doing, present them with targeted information and keep better track of them to ensure they come back.