Reviewing the Presidential Campaign Websites 290
Behind the link are my first impressions of the Internet presences of the top US presidential candidates for each party. Any website design pros care to chime in?
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton: Good professional web site. Using a photo where the Senator is smirking for the main image of the candidate strikes me as a bad idea since it re-enforces some negatives. Fourth overall in seeming to encourage supporter action/participation.
John Edwards: A bit of a disorganized mess. The Edwards campaign needs to hire a professional web designer (or fire the one they have). Bunch of links to the Edwards campaign's accounts on various social networking sites (no multiply though). Second overall in seeming to encourage supporter action/participation.
Barak Obama: Very clean and professional. Links to the Obama campaign's accounts on a few social networking sites. First overall in seeming to encourage supporter action/participation. Supporter area has its own social networking features. Best campaign web site by far.
Republicans:
Rudy Giuliani: What is with the flags at the top pointing in all different directions? Don't know which way you are going? Also what is with that candidate photo? It makes Giuliani look like a villain out of a comic book. This site looks like something from 8 years ago in terms of design and content. For "participation" it appears to just ask for money and allow you to sign up for his email list. Worst overall in seeming to encourage supporter action/participation.
John McCain: Eeek! What is with the funeral colors? They seem kind of creepy. Might work as black and white if white was the dominant color. The site is a bit of a bandwidth/browser pig. Other than those two issues the cleanest site other than Obama's. Third overall in seeming to encourage supporter action/participation.
Mitt Romney: Good professional site. Good choice of images. Fifth overall in seeming to encourage supporter action/participation.
sites (Score:2, Insightful)
mccain's site? good grief. so a vote for mccain means you're doomed! what a dark and depressing thing that is.
obama's? light. very light. ugly too me thinks.
rudy's site is, meh, its ok. again, very light in terms of content. i'm sure his team is still trying to figure out what to do with it.
romney's. well, i lead the development team on that one. his campaign hired the company i work for, and my job was to be the architect (design the content management system, and all of the infrastructure that drives the site) and run the engineering team that built/implemented everything. i like it, our visual designers did a bang-up job in making a political site look not overtly political. yeah the usual colors are there, but much more tasteful i believe.
quick review (Score:2, Insightful)
McCain's site is the worst in my opinion. It has four Flash objects on the front page and if you have Flash blocked, there is not much content. And as soon as I unblock the three flash buttons, they turn into videos of McCain explaining what is in that section - really annoying IMO.
Also, McCain's site looks like a dead Transformer [wikipedia.org].
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P.S. 200 comments!
Re:Sure, I'll chime in (Score:3, Insightful)
Hillary does some things that piss me off, that's true, but then again anyone with her age and experience will have done things to piss me off, so it's a bit of a wash.
I also like no-nonsense intelligent women, which is one of the things I think she has going for her. Love her or hate her, she is tough. Obama and Edwards come across as total lightweights in comparison. Toughness matters to me as well.
Obama's a great guy to have a beer with. I'm not sure about being leader of the free world. Veep, sure. In '12 or '16, perhaps. Now, no.
Edwards is just a lightweight, maybe nice to elect to the school board or vestry, but not President. If I have to watch him in another debate, I'll scream.
Richardson lacks the gravitas and charisma to make it. Sad but true. Again, good Veep material.
As for specific positions, I happen to be among those who think her health care reforms way back when were a good idea. (Certainly loads better than extending Medicare to everyone like the Dems seem to want these days. I want universal care, but not single-payer.) I also like the way she is more internationalist, but is also no dove. While I am not happy about getting stuck in Iraq, we are there now and have to make the best of it, so I'd rather have someone who has established good ties to the military (if not have experience themselves, but the only one with experience to speak of is McCain). Economically I want someone who's a free trader and small-business friendly, while also friendly to workers and makes the right noises about environmental policy. I also want someone who is a fiscal hawk -- no more of this cut-tax-and-spend-like-a-drunken-sailor bullshit -- while wanting to keep tax levels more or less on an even keel (no soak the rich stuff, but also no stupid cuts). Hillary fits all those criteria better than all the others named.
She is also a potentially divisive figure (though so far in the Senate she's actually gotten on well with Republicans), and I'm sick to death of the rampant partisanship of the current administration. She has tried to have it both ways on the war, which may be understandable, but still annoying. She has been near power all her adult life, and her spouse obviously has loads of insight and experience to lend her, but she lacks personal experience. I am also allergic to dynastic B.S. So it's not like I'm rah-rah Hillary. More like, oh well, I guess I am stuck with her, because no one else has the combination of qualities I am looking for. If McCain hadn't started fishing for votes among Falwell's brood, I've have considered him as a favorite (the first time I have considered a Republican that seriously), but that's a huge black mark for me -- I strongly dislike any association with the religious right, which is also my major beef with Romney.
As noted above, though, I am also tempted to vote for a third party this time around. None of the likely candidates are so good for me that I want to for for them, but also none are so bad I'd want to vote against them. Thus I may take the opportunity to support a party I'd like to see get more cash next time around. Or, if I'm in a funny mood that day, I'll vote for the Grass Roots Party. :-)
Cheers,
Ethelred
Re:sites (Score:3, Insightful)
Although Clinton's site isn't bad in terms of general site design, I am (negatively) struck by the fact that there is no "Issues" menu or section.
Re:let firefox decide (Score:3, Insightful)
Clinton, Giuliani, Romney: 0
Obama: 1
Edwards: 2
McCain: 4
Re:Sure, I'll chime in (Score:2, Insightful)
But hey thats just me
Re:"Each party" ? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Quite popular" denotes a level of support they don't have in any locality.
Don't forget Dennis Kuncinch... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.kucinich.us/ [kucinich.us]
The bad, the good, the ugly -- explained (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you can learn a lot about a candidate from their website design. McCain is probably trying to get all the old conservatives -- the one who remember when black and white was the only thing on TV. Or in movie theaters. Big hit among the retired.
Obama. Skewed the other way -- video, flash, very modern. Sure to be a winner among the 18-25 set.
Clinton. Not bad, but very powder-puff blue. It's traditional... with a woman's touch, and a woman's vote. She's very much in front [intrade.com] of the Democrats.
Edwards. Nothing pulls it together. It makes a good try at content, but no organization. Tries to be everything to everyone. Doesn't succeed. Neither will his campaign.
Giuliani. I know he looks like a villain in that picture, but that's how he always looks. Deep blue, stands for deep traditional conservatism. Will look to the letter of the law and not the spirit, appealing to all law-and-order citizens. Will probably make it illegal to have porn theaters within 300 miles of each other. Guiliani is tied with McCain [intrade.com]. Black (McCain) and Blue (Giuliani) is how the Republicans are going to end up.
Romney. The biggest three pictures show him gesticulating with the back of his hand. Like he's gonna hit someone. "As seen on MittTV" pic VERY creepy, almost as creepy as V's stuff. Information-rich, but a bit bland. Like Kerry, his campaign will be information-rich and a bit bland.
--Rob
Re:Sure, I'll chime in (Score:4, Insightful)
Then tell me what shitty things Obama has done. He's got quite a bit of legislative record behind him -- in the Indiana senate before the US senate. Or Ron Paul. It's easy to say "it's okay, everybody does it" -- but for that to be a valid excuse, it needs to hold true.
As for the bias against Hillary -- damned if I know. I don't like her personality; I think she's divisive at a time when what we need most is to a recovery from excessive division. I do think the "take away my GTA" thing, like her position in favor of the flag-burning ban, is more serious than you make them out to be; these positions reflect on her larger view of the legitimate role of the State in people's lives.
Re:Sure, I'll chime in (Score:0, Insightful)
-- W.C. Fields
Re:What?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sure, I'll chime in (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the world might trust us a little more (never mind the Iraqis).
I might also point out that a whole lot of people said we shouldn't do it *before* the fact, using very solid reasoning that was supported at the time and became more and more apparent as time went by. At what point do we say, "hey, we should consider listening to these people"?