Looking for beanie bag donkeys? How about a swanky Waterford Crystal elephant?

Finding and buying political paraphernalia on the Web is easier than ever, and many presidential candidates are looking to capitalize on the trend.

		Sound off here!!
	Post your comment to this page.

Whether you want a poster of a hunky and much younger John McCain or some George W. Bush-labeled bottled water straight "from underground springs in the heart of Kentucky's famous Blue Grass region," you can buy it by following the links to the candidates' official stores.

No one expects the gift shops to make much money for the candidates during this campaign season. In fact, the Federal Election Commission's campaign contribution rules sometimes make it more trouble than it's worth for official campaign sites to run gift shops, so most presidential candidates provide links to separate companies authorized to sell their wares. The real Internet boon for sites so far has been the collection of online donations.

But the stores do make it easier for candidates to get their names out there, on everything from baseball hats to director's chairs and cuff links.

"It's an opportunity for people across America who enthusiastically support Governor Bush to order campaign material," said Greg Sedberry, e-campaign manager for Republican candidate George W. Bush. The campaign doesn't get money from the George W. Bush store, which is provided as a link in the lower right-hand corner of the main Bush for President site. But it does have a say in how the items are presented.

Back during the last presidential campaign -- before the burgeoning of e-commerce -- supporters would have to call up the campaign offices to order items, or wait for fund-raising events to buy a candidate's wares. Now they can point, click and charge.

Big demand
"People are buying. Lots and lots of people are buying," said Jessica Beck, project manager at Goregear.com, one of three stores reachable from Vice President Al Gore's official campaign site. "Through the Web, you can reach people who you might not otherwise be able to reach."

Beck, whose company also runs a mail-order catalog business, said the "vast majority" of her business these days is done over the Internet. That's a sharp increase from four years ago, when most people ordered campaign items by telephone. She said even people who get the company's print catalog usually go to the Web to make their purchases.

Bumper stickers and buttons are still the most popular campaign items, but several candidates sell more creative props.

Boxer's boxers
Senator Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., was among the first to embrace the e-commerce craze on her campaign site last year, selling paraphernalia including -- what else -- boxers. David Sandretti, Boxer's communications director, said the site made tens of thousands of dollars through online commerce and donations.

That's small potatoes compared with the $15 million spent altogether on the campaign. But at least the site paid for itself, and got Boxer's name out among the tech-savvy. "It's just so much easier to buy online," Sandretti said. "You can do it anytime, day or night."

Now Bush has followed suit, selling his Kentucky water and a political memoir, while fellow Republican candidate John McCain is featuring his "American Maverick" poster and a $15 videotape of his life story. The Democratic candidates aren't quite as creative, with Bill Bradley's store hawking mouse pads in addition to traditional items. Meanwhile, Al Gore is peddling hats and shirts.

Most of the stores are a quick click away from the campaign site's front page, but a person close to the Gore campaign said officials there didn't want to drive people off the site. Instead, that campaign has put a link to three official stores from its "Get Involved" section, the most heavily trafficked part of the site.

Steve Forbes, who perhaps has the most comprehensive Web site of all the candidates, doesn't have a store. "People can call us up, and we'll send stuff to him," said one person working on the Forbes campaign. Former Republican-turned-Reform-Party candidate Pat Buchanan doesn't have one, either.

Show us the ...
Phil Noble, an Internet campaign strategist and president of political portal Politics Online, said lacking an e-commerce element could be a problem for candidates who want to prove they're serious about and interested in technology.

	MORE FROM ZDNET:
		See ZDNet News' Law & Politics section
		Ex-Clinton advisor stumps for Vote.com
		FEC seeks input on Web rules
		Online presidential ads a certainty
		Money and politics come together on the Web

"If you're claiming to be pretty good on the Internet, you'd better be pretty damn good," Noble said. "That includes chats and stores and all that. If you say you're better, you'd better show us you're better."

Noble thinks campaign-related e-commerce won't pick up until the next election season, and he expects it to be closely tied to fund-raising.

Right now, at the party level, Republicans seem to be ahead of the game when it comes to e-commerce.

A GOP fan signing onto the Republican National Committee store could easily drop a thousand dollars in just a few clicks. Purchase the Waterford Crystal elephant ($85), billed as "a striking gift for pachyderm lovers accustomed to the finest in crystal creations", the Chelsea Shipstrike Clock with the Republican symbol ($450), and two pairs of 10-karat gold elephant cuff links ($395 a pair), and you've easily spent 10 Ben Franklins.

Ready to re-launch
On Tuesday, Nov. 9, the RNC re-launched its site with a bigger store and links including flowers and toys.

On the other hand, a credit card number won't get you as much as a bumper sticker on the Democratic National Committee. The site doesn't have an e-commerce element.

The Arizona Democrats is among the sites hawking the most unusual political wares. Cortland Coleman, political director of the award-winning site, said the decision about which items to sell online boiled down to "looking around and seeing what we had."

Visitors can buy beanbag donkeys for $15 a pop. Weren't invited to dinner last time Bill and Hillary vacationed on the vineyard? No problem: You can pretend you toured a national park with the first lady. The item getting top billing on the site is a T-shirt reading: "I was there, May 19, 1999, at the Grand Canyon with Hillary Rodham Clinton, First Lady of the United States." Pay fifteen bucks, and the T-shirt is yours. No need to even prove you tagged along.

Like Senator Boxer's e-paraphernalia page, the e-commerce section of the Arizona Democrats has paid for itself, Coleman said.

But don't look for an upgrade from beanbag donkeys to Waterford Crystal ones anytime soon.