Last month, Wired profiled ObamaCycle, a social network that helps Obama supporters send each other campaign materials like rally signs and bumper stickers. As the primary season progressed from state to state, supporters living in states that had already held contests found themselves with more schwag than they knew what to do with. So, aided by the social network creation service Ning, ObamaCycle was set up as a way to connect the schwag-laden supporters with the schwag-needing supporters in upcoming primary states.

It’s a terrific idea, and it made me wonder why Ning hasn’t been used in politics more this year. From what I can tell, ObamaCycle is the biggest political social network on Ning. There are about a dozen social networks set up for Obama, very few for Ron Paul, and absolutely none for Hillary Clinton. What gives?

As profiled on TechCrunch, Ning is essentially a free white label social networking service. The administrator tools let anyone create their own social network, and customize it with user-friendly tools. Members of a network can connect in a discussion forum, send messages to each other, create groups, embed YouTube videos and external feeds, play with widgets, and publicize the social network externally using badges. And yes, Ning does display those oh-so valuable email addresses to the social network administrator.

It’ll be interesting to see if this incredibly useful tool gets traction in the political world. I’m thinking a smart Congressional campaign might pick up on it.