“What if the White House, the ultimate architectural symbol of political power, were to be designed today? On occasion of the election of the 44th President of the United States of America, Storefront for Art and Architecture, in association with Control Group, challenge you to design a new residence for the world’s most powerful individual. The best ideas, designs, descriptions, images, and videos will be selected by some of the world’s most distinguished designers and critics and featured in a month-long exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture in July 2008 and published in Surface magazine. All three winners will be flown to New York to collect their prizes at the opening party. Register now and send us your ideas for the Presidential Palace of the future!”

via BLDGBLOG

“The US Election 2008 Web Monitor provides weekly snapshots of global Web coverage. The results reflect attention and sentiment towards the US presidential candidates. Lists of keywords summarize the most important issues associated with each candidate.”

Pictured at right is a graph of the sentiment as measured by the US Election Web Monitor about the two “surging” candidates, Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama.

via Networked Performance

Coudal links up More Party Animals, which is good design fun, and has a bit of a point:

More Party Animals is an apolitically-political idea born out of a heartfelt disenchantment with the status quo. As the current system continues to polarize this country, we strongly believe America is in need of a wider selection of political parties.

We say our idea is apolitical because More Party Animals is steadfastly devoted to being policy-free. Our animals represent a potential symbol for new beliefs, not the beliefs themselves. That, we leave up to you.

Our purpose is to encourage and help people start their own party, promote their own ideas and create a genuine alternative that might actually catch on. More choices leads to better results…it’s the American way.

Are red white and blue so engrained in the design palette of the American political system? Apparently so. At least the quixotic usage of the elephant and donkey provide some fodder to build on for political design fun. And they look good on t-shirts, too.