The channel is available in 32 million households, and for now is only offering about eight hours of programming. But it is tough to find: on Time Warner, for example, it is Channel 1279; on Cablevision, Channel 500. Though “Elections ‘08” has been available since January, only 500,000 segments have been viewed on all cable channels. Neither traffic nor ads on the election channel has been particularly strong…Obama is the first major candidate to buy time on it, but only in 15 states, the story points out..besides that only a handful of local politicians—and the Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who is promoting wind energy—have bought ad time.

But, the cable companies say, this at least shows how they can work together. “What we’ve accomplished with ‘Elections ‘08’ may not feel and sound like a huge success story to the layperson, but behind the curtain, we’ve laid the foundation for the cable operators working together in an unprecedented manner,” said David Porter, VP for marketing and new media at the Cox Media division of Cox Communications.

That and the fact that there is no dearth of political coverage of TV and online, in all possible platforms and formats. Not necessarily the best sector to start this ambitious venture with….