Obama vs. McCain: The Click Wars

The latest polls are showing a neck-and-neck race, but there's one area where Democrat Barack Obama is clearly besting Republican John McCain: Internet traffic. According to Nielsen Online, which tracks online usage, Obama's website drew 2.3 million unique visitors in May, compared to 563,000 for McCain's.

The Obama campaign has also been paying for more web display ads, Nielsen Online reports: Obama logged 105,658,000 "image based impressions" in May, compared to 8,551,000 for McCain. But McCain's campaign has been more aggressive with its "sponsor-based links," those little text-based adds that come up on the top and right-hand sides of your computer screen when you do a search. In May, McCain logged 5,447,000 "sponsored link impressions," compared to 1,806,000 for Obama.

Does this matter? Perhaps. Nielsen Online contends that web users tend to be politically engaged: 89 percent of "active web users" over the age of 18 are registered to vote. By comparison, the U.S. Census reported that 72 percent of voting-aged citizens were registered to vote in the 2004 presidential election.