From the home states of presidents to the birthplace of the Constitution, historic sites and museums are packed with watershed politics and White House moments this election year.

Become a candidate, campaign manager or journalist at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia through ''Headed to the White House'' -- tinyurl.com/3vbqp5 -- a fast-paced interactive display that includes role-playing and audiovisual presentations.

Make your own campaign ad, walk through a re-creation of a national convention floor and cast ballots tallied on a continuously updated Electoral College big board. The 3,000-square-foot exhibit ends in victory, with a trip down the inaugural parade route and a presidential photo-op in the Oval Office. The exhibit ends Dec. 14 and is appropriate for children as young as 4.

In Columbia, Pa., the National Watch & Clock Museum offers ''Time in Office: Presidential Time Pieces'' -- www.nawcc.org/museum/museum.htm -- with 30 objects on loan representing 20 presidents. Included is a pocketwatch from 1789 purchased at George Washington's request by his friend Gouverneur Morris on a trip to Paris. It was made by Jean-Antoine Lepine, the clockmaker of Louise XVI. Also on display is a night table clock given to Richard Nixon, an avid baseball fan, by California Angels star Don Baylor in 1979 as a thank-you gift for a White House visit. Nixon treasured the battery-powered Seiko until his death in 1994. The time pieces are on display until Dec. 31.

In Branson, Mo., the American Presidents Museum is participating in ''Picturing America'' -- picturingamerica.neh.gov/ -- a National Endowment for the Humanities project that has placed images of famous American-themed art, photos and other work in thousands of schools and libraries throughout the country. The museum -- www.americanpresidentialmuseum.com -- put up the collection in September for a fall run. The poster-sized reproductions include a photo by James Karales showing 1965 voting rights marchers under an ominous sky in Montgomery, Ala., at the conclusion of a four-day, 54-mile hike, and Jacob Lawrence's ''The Migration of the Negro Panel no. 57,'' a painting invoking the black southern migration to northern cities in 1940-41.

Abraham Lincoln sites are giddy as the 200th anniversary of his birth approaches in February. A variety of exhibits have already begun in Kentucky, Illinois and other locations where he lived and served.

With more than 40 counties in Kentucky laying claim to a piece of Lincoln, the premier exhibition in the state focuses on his backwoods boyhood in ''Beyond the Log Cabin: Kentucky's Abraham Lincoln'' -- www.kylincoln.org/events/exhibit.htm -- presented by the Kentucky Historical Society. Touch-screen computers allow young people to explore ''AbeSpace,'' a playful look at Lincoln's personal and professional life. Among items on display is a ''Free Soil, Free Men'' campaign lantern dating about 1858. The exhibit opens to the public Oct. 21 at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort and travel to Louisville and Ashland, Ky., through 2010.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., where he later moved with his family, put the nation's 16th president on the road in April with ''Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America'' -- tinyurl.com/5xkrop -- a free exhibit packed into a 53-foot-long double trailer. The exhibit on wheels is traveling around the United States through August 2010 and includes a photo re-creation of Lincoln's 1861 farewell address from a train car in Springfield on his way to the White House.

Also included is a video called ''The Civil War in Four Minutes.'' Look for a very blue, very large tractor-trailer with Lincoln's unmistakable face on the side. Trips to major sporting events, schools and key bicentennial sites are planned.