Political Gastronomica : February 2007

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Vilsack to step out of the race...

Across the wires:

Vilsack to end Democratic presidential bid - USAToday
Democrat Vilsack to drop out of 2008 race: sources - Reuters
Vilsack Drops Out - NYTimes

While I understand the reason (unable to raise the $20M initial anty), I am saddened the situation that forces him to making this decision. As the pioneer in starting his campaign first this season, Governor Vilsack did a wonderful job making a splash for reaching out and building excellent connections with supporters through his online campaign (especially impressed with his efforts on sites like blip.tv). I wish him well in his other pursuits - and congratulations on a good effort.

On the campaign site evals - TomVilsack08.com was one of the better sites out there in the Democratic field and deserves a discussion on its merits. In the coming days, if the site is not shut down, I will do a brief run down of the strengths and weaknesses of the engagement practices his team executed.

Tags: Tom Vilsack, Campaign 2008, Democratic Primary

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 5:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Social Media Club NY - How Will Social Media Impact Politics?

Interested in a conversation about Social Media in this coming season? Join us today at the New York Social Media Club where we will be discussing the use of social media in political campaigns and how they have and will (potentially) impact this cycle's elections.

Joining us will be:

• Noel Hidalgo - part of BarCamp and the "unconference" scene
• Joshua Levy - associate editor of Personal Democracy and TechPresident
• Adam Mordicai - founder of Advomatic, proving Drupal-based solutions and former Dean campaign member

Please join our host, Howard Greenstein and Nate Westheimer of VentBox for a very interesting evening.

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 2:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Move it and you lose it...

Feeling the pressure of other states complaining about shifting the primary season, the national GOP warned the state parties not to move their primary dates - which included Florida. (See "GOP Warned Not To Move Up Primary") Granted, no one is asking me, but I think it is fair for Florida to move up the primary, if only to get it into the conversation before the election is decided.

After working a couple of campaigns in Florida (and growing up there), Florida is a microcasm of the United States - with every major population having a geographic region within the state. Why wouldn't it be appropriate for the state to have an influential primary? And, since the candidates are often making junkets to South Florida and other affluent parts of the state, it makes perfect sense to make it a place for primary election efforts. I wish Senator Ring's efforts success.

Tags: Florida Primary, early primary, Jeremy Ring

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 8:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Making the Grade: John McCain

Funny thing happened on the way to publishing this sites eval - a newsletter showed up in my Inbox announcing the launch of the new JohnMcCain.com website. With flowery words like:

Today's release is the base platform for the thousands of Team McCain online activists to become involved in John McCain 2008. On the site, individuals are empowered as key participants in Senator McCain's campaign to recruit other volunteers, raise money, and participate in a virtual town hall with Senator McCain. The site will continue to grow and evolve as Senator McCain makes a final decision about running for President.

"In 2000, John McCain harnessed the power of the internet in a way that was new and unique to campaigns," said Christian Ferry, National eCampaign Director. "This site continues to build on that experience, recognizing the importance of new media in today's political discourse and the power of technology to inform, involve, and connect individuals to a candidate and a campaign."

"This site is a departure from the traditional campaign website in both design and navigation," continued Ferry. "It is designed to engage users with a different visual experience on every page, giving them unique insight into the rich personal story of John McCain and his years of experience that differentiates him as ready to lead."

With the press release as a starting point, lets check out McCain's eCampaigning IQ:

JohnMcCain.com - (design by unknown, backend by unknown)
Comparing the current site to what existed last night, we have the same design principles - black, white and grays with McCain providing the color in the video clips that exist on the site. Funnily enough, the site is attempting some of the principles of the Democrats, with some additions such as Flash rollovers (move your mouse to the lower sections of the site), but there are some differences.

• First Impression - Strong, Naval, Dark - with McCain standing out as the light.
  From my first impression, I am not overly impressed - it is a challenge to figure out what to do. With McCain's face on the right, I am drawn away from the two things that they want - to Join Team McCain and to Donate. I am intrigued to play the video, and hear Senator McCain speaking on Iraq. I still see Naval officer and the potential leader, with a level of gravitas. His brand is "McCain" - very heavy and dark. Almost foreboding. The logo is in the tradition of the Armed Forces - strong, sharp and clean. Throughout the site, the brand is consistant, but the layout and structure runs into problems.
  IQ pts: +4
• Call To Action
  In any site, the first thing to do is orient yourself. The large head of McCain is there to see his videos which seem to loom. As in the Hillary site, dark colors blend together and the white spaces stand out - in this case, you only see the video. The problem is that the other actions desired by the campaign are not readily apparent - aside from the 10AM CST Town Hall meeting.

  And the one object that should be enticing me as an activist, doesn't. And, for the campaign's need - donate gets lost in the home page. But, when one goes into the website, Senator McCain shows up on the left-hand side, smiling and asking for a donation. But, as a first call to action, not exceeding inspiring. IQ pts: -1

• Signup
  As in almost all sites, the signup is easy - especially with the signup bar in the upper right-hand corner and they sacrifice getting the zipcode to get you to the next step. Here is where they fall down: the next page is straight out of an HTML designers training manual - long, straight and off the page. And, in this page, you must give your address if you want to be part of the campaign - to get a McCain website or to modify the look and feel of the website. I can not get away with minimal information, which will more than likely turn off some people that need to be coaxed into building a relationship. Then, once you do the first step (of how many?), you see the next page which has your personal information greyed out(!) and now you must enter more information to get an account which seems even more intimidating. And, then, the reason for my giving him my information, I can not make my site. Do I feel like I accomplished something? Or did they get something from me?
  IQ pts: +3
• Donate
  Here is where the task should be easy - simple page to enter my data and get a sense of confidence. This page is completely different from the others - with the standard HTML stack that goes down the page (or if you click on this link, you get the one-page contribution form). The only reason I feel confident about "safe" contributing is that the URL has the HTTPS statement, but I assume most other people do not know this. Additionally, there seems to be a lot of information requested due to the layout, even though they ask for only three more pieces of information. With the addition of the monthly contribution section and the "referred" object, they will discover a slight conversion difficulty - if only for the challenge given to users with so much choice and request for information. The error handling is also basic/simple - a list of all of the problems without reference (e.g. telling me that I did not Verify at the top of the page, which is a choice at the bottom of the form).When I am done, I am brought to a Thank You page - with the four options to be active. But no help, no receipt, no email to me (I skipped entering the email), and no tracking codes for how I got here. IQ pts: +3
  
  Interesting facet I think I discovered - McCain is testing the different contribution formats to see which results in a better conversion rate. Nice work on the experimentation side.
  
  
• Activism
  This Action Center seems to have the same features of the Hillary services, but includes state-specific services (volunteer for the state offices, create your own site). One thing that impressed me even though no blog exists, McCain offers users to either submit a video to the campaign with questions, submit a question via text or engage other blogs. Now this is a tactic I suggested awhile ago for another candidate who was staff-shy and blog-nervous, but it is a good stop-gap until the blog team is ready. In addition, the site promises personal blogs as well as the campaign blog. You can also invite others to join in via email, but all of the tools seem very limited. More like the bare minimum than a good compliment. IQ pts: 0

Engagement Strategy Smarts
In this stage of the campaign cycle, it is difficult to create an engagement strategy when you are working the specific states necessary for the primary season. This site has launched with a full understanding that they are not ready for the engagement effort - YET. They promise alot - but from their efforts to date, it seems as though the outreach is limited.

• Equity
  Is this site for me or for John McCain? My fundamental premise is that candidates need to serve the supporters and then request what I can do for them. Or, if I am a serious supporter, make it easy to let me become part of the campaign. And, as a simple site, JohnMcCain.com does the basics. With a little bit of embellishment with downloadable widgets and gimmicks, but nothing stimulating at present.
  
  For some reason, the site design seems almost like an old style newspaper, or Stars and Stripes (sorry Daniel, can not agree with the "professional" styling here). The biographical information on Senator McCain does not hold well together, sort of that "swap-meet" style discussed in other posts. The "interactive timeline", while providing a nice piece of Flash, does little in the information section since it is a challenging navigation paradigm with information and photos. In general, I can find information on the candidate, but feel like I am going through different books from different authors to find it.
  
  Does this make the grade? Funnily enough, I think not as strongly - since, while I get the information, it is like peanut butter - spread over a large piece of bread. And I am not enticed to contribute, rather I get lost. IQ pts: +2
• Engagement
  There is what I would call tick-box engagement. The Flash pieces on the bottom of the homepage seem to address this need - as in luring me to get engaged (nice trick to put them at the bottom of the page so my mouse would find them if I fly over them). But the site is currently not very engaging - both from the colors of the site and the premise it seems. The black/gray nature of the site is foreboding - bringing a screaming need for color.
  
  Maybe this is a tactic, since the splashes of color are always focused on the Apple/Mac-like video presentations - to engage the visitor with Senator McCain. But something is missing - and I can not quite put my finger on it. Does this site engage? I can not say so. IQ pts: -2
• Offsite Engagement
  McCain is supposed to have the best organization out there - getting people from Bush's Campaign to help in the outreach effort. Tripping across the myspace and Facebook, it looks like McCain is beginning to reach out - but not connect. I think of the Facebook profile as another billboard for him to post. He has not accepted any "friends" yet, which leads me to wonder what will happen here. See my comments on Hillary's offsite engagement policy for suggestions. IQ pts: -3
• Respect
  This site - it's about McCain and the gray. Or the black. Little about me and you. Remember that my metric is about engagement, not about features. The site does not scream at me with a swiftly running video, but it is still not engaging me. I would say it is indifferent at the moment - focusing on getting the scaffolding of the platform out there - and I wonder how we will revisit the site in the coming weeks. IQ pts: 0

Final Result - Engagement IQ of 106
This is a bit of a disappointment - from the front-runner of the Republicans, especially making a claim of being the leader in the online engagement effort. Even their site is missing basic search engine fundamentals and has a major risk feature - aside from their personalization sites. One lesson learned in the 2004 election was to not place a search box on the website, since google already provides it, it takes up unnecessary space, exposes mistakes if not tracked properly and the feature is almost as superfluous as an appendix. And, in looking at the code behind the webpages, it is going to be difficult to have google crawl through. A poor showing, IMHO. Senator McCain, I look forward to your future revisions.

Update: take a look at David Ali's take on the site. We have some similarities in opinion, and others we widely diverge. Oh well. One man junk is another's treasure.

Update Feb 17 - connected to the Town Hall - and only got the first three minutes of the audio each time, and then suddenly would lose it. The video kept playing - but it was a wholly unsatisfying experience. Sorry Senator, please get a better vendor.

Next up: Senator Barak Obama

Tags: John McCain, Campaign 2008, Campaign Websites, johnmccain.com

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 12:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Making the Grade: HillaryClinton.com

Since everyone needs a place to start, and Hillary's site seems to be considered one of the better sites, let's begin the evaluation with her.

I originally planned on doing two or three sites per post, but as you will read, not an easy thing to do.

HillaryClinton.com - (design by Mayfield Strategy Group, backend by solutionset)
At first blush, Hillary’s site kind of looks like a simple re-templating of her Senate site – maintaining the some of the lighter blues of her past campaign site – and adding the requisite navy blues and red necessary for a "presidential" site. Upon the launch, one of the major colors that you saw was the color pink - look at the videos during the initial announcement launch - and watch as the candidate changes the color of her outfits from a purely pink then adding the blues of the jacket, to the total blue suit outfit - all while still being in front of the homestead looking room. Funny thing - when I first saw the launch, especially with the new catch phrase, "Let the Conversation Begin", I knew Peter Daou had to navigate the Communications Team to coordinate that one. But to get back to the questions at hand:

Design/Technology Smarts
Now, to be fair, the head of Mayfield Strategies, Josh Ross, is one of my favorite designers. When we first "met", after he had responded to an email I had sent out to a Stanford alumni mailing list, I immediately liked what I saw. Little did I know at the time that Josh was one of the premiere designers out there. Josh, with his long-time business partner, Alex Kaplinsky, did amazing things for the Kerry Campaign. And, after the campaign, their work has spread to a number of major campaigns in the 2006 including Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, Governor John Corzine of New Jersey to name a few. Their work is often clean and to the point, and they use the learning from their corporate clients to improve the sites and features found within the campaign sites. So, I am somewhat biased because it is in my own personal design style, but I am going to measure on certain usability principles and the original metrics we discussed in my earlier post.

• First Impression - She's soft and strong, she could be our President
  As Tom mentions in his Flash post, the brand is strong - "Hillary" - no mention of "Clinton" there, but it's already an automatic reflex to connect the two words. The logo is diminutive with the same "soft but strong" font-type (white letters with a hint of a blue outline). IQ pts: +4
• Call To Action
  Not sure who was the first to do this on campaigns, but Mayfield often recommends having a splash page that almost requires you to have to signup to get to the homepage. But as of my viewing today, it looks like that page is no longer available (clear your cookies and go which leads me to believe that Peter and/or Mayfield has determined the return on investment (visitors to signatures) has either been dropping off or dissuading people from going the next step (they decide to leave instead of doing the next step).
  
  The first things I see as the call-to-action is the leftmost visual - the main stage as we used to call it. It leads people to the main topic that the campaign is promoting, and the negative font placement (white on a darker color) draws your eye. Secondly, you are drawn to the lower right by the "Contribute" button. Thirdly, well - here is where it gets "wonky", as my students put it. You could claim it is the "Making History" box, the "Top Videos" or the "Team Hillary Action Center". This is where it dies out for me - since I am not enticed to be "active", rather, I am enticed to use the website for two purposes - watch the videos and contribute. IQ pts: +3
• Signup
  Signup is easy - especially with the signup bar in the upper right-hand corner, and they grab the requisite two pieces of information (name, zipcode). The disappointing thing is the next step, which leads you to the "Team Hillary Page" with the light green "Thanks for signing up for email. Take the next step and join Team Hillary.". This page is the disaster that every campaign goes through - how do you get more information about a person and their interests without inundating them with too many requests? Mayfield is a firm believer in the "above the fold" rule - all of the work must be above the fold of the screen, to maximize the performance. Consider that every major contact page (e.g. signup, Share Your Thoughts, videos, contribute) all exist primarily above the fold - and the action button is (usually) easy to see. For me, this is key - to maximize the performance. IQ pts: +4
• Donate
  Again, contributing is easy - all of the lessons learned from eCommerce and the Kerry Campaign are in force - the backend does not enjoy the same look-and-feel of the main site - but we sacrifice for the safety of the server. Same one-page, above the fold concept. Errors are handled appropriately (with small red font where the "errors" live), tracking of where the donations come from and even the contribution receipt has a "Report a Problem" link which can connect to the contributions@hillaryclinton.com email account. Minor issue is the font size, but the assumption more than likely is that people with bad eyesight are not going to use this interface as often. IQ pts: +4
• Activism
  With the Action Center provided by solutionset, Hillary has one of the nicest action centers - with the lovely hues, simple interface and above the screen fold principles. Each of the functions are clearly available on the right, and clicking through, the particular features are clear and simple. They falter when you look at the so-called Featured Actions are essentially performance trackers - "Did respond to this issue? If so, track that". Note, that there is very little to do once you click through the Featured Actions aside from identify yourself (as I explained almost six months ago in another post). And, if you want to get involved in a party for Hillary, the party locator is excellent - as long as someone has published the party within her system. IQ pts: +3
  
  Recommendation: consider publishing the events via an iCal feed for google and/or other services like zvents or eventful for interested parties outside of the HillaryClinton.com domain

Engagement Strategy Smarts
In this stage of the campaign cycle, it is difficult to create an engagement strategy when you are working the specific states necessary for the primary season. Including the fact that this election cycle has started far earlier than any before, this can be something of a challenge. But, from the site and services, let's take a look:

• Equity
  Here becomes the fundamental issue in any campaign site - is it for the candidate or for the supporters. Remember, my initial premise is that candidates need to serve the supporters, not just be a place for press releases, policy statement and blog posts to reside. And consider the fundamental tradeoff - give me what I want, and I will give you what you want. Hillary, for the most part, does that.
  
  I come to her site, and instead of forcing the issue of sign up or donate, I get the major information of the day. I can easily navigate to her story, and the content is easy to read, found on no more than two screens full of information - with a simple navigation timeline for following the story. The nice touch is the inclusion of the photos and inline videos that do not start when I reach the page - I get the chance to start them on my own. And, no matter what I do, the email signup is either at the top right (or the Welcome message with the logout button), the Action Center beckons me from the right, or the Contribute button to the lower right.
  
  Does this make the grade? I think so, for where we are at this time. IQ pts: +6
  
  One small problem - if you already signed up on the email database or the Senate Action Center, it seems as though your password from before OR you have no password, which means you have to go through the "Forgot Password" sequence.
  
  
• Engagement
  This is a challenge - since this site is primarily a marketing tool for Hillary. The blog still does not exist and the content is primarily a YouTube for Hillary supporters (and reporters). As for actions - it is primarily a flypaper solution determining your interest, rather than engaging you. Even the emails are simply calls to action to determine your interest in issues. The particular "actions" you can be engaged with is simply to tell others and to raise money. This is important for people trying to self-identify and/or raise money as an individual who can show their fundraising prowess to the other development members (read: fundraisers). Does it engage? Hmmm... IQ pts: +2
• Offsite Engagement
  For this election, this is going to be an interesting effort - since Peter was originally hired as the Blogger Outreach person, there are a lot of challenges to the effort. Particularly, one can not simply have a myspace site and count up the number of friends that the person has - that is a game that does not bear fruit, unless it brings in money or supporters. While Hillary has a number of myspace profiles ([1], [2]) and some negative ones and has "accumulated" a number of "friends" (she has 12,726 on myspace and 100 on Facebook as of today), this does not make an offsite engagement strategy. In order to be effective, the channel needs to be utilized by someone within the campaign to engage with actions and activities that will inspire and be measured. These channels have always had the potential to be useful in reaching people where they are, rather than where they aren't (which is at your site), since their friends are not hanging out at the campaign site - yet. While Hillary has a large footprint in the online community space, I do not see the engagement by her campaign, but a very enthusiastic supporter who should be commended - and/or recruited by Peter. IQ pts: -1
  
  I have not mentioned the virtual campaign office in SecondLife, but that is another kettle off fish.
  
  
• Respect
  In this site, I am inclined to grant that it is more about Hillary than about you - but the respect provided is about making the experience a pleasant one. Remember that my metric is about engagement, not about features. For that, all of the emails that come and go between me and the site as well as the final pages of a process are clean and lead to another step or appreciation. To that end, I think they are respecting the balance between marketing and application. IQ pts: +2

Final Result - IQ of 125
Now, this number is a challenging one to generate, simply because it is my metric on their performance with my own assumptions on what is important. But this is an attempt to point out the good and bad of these sites, in the hope that the other campaigns will also realize what is important and give us, the supporters, the benefits to make a difference this campaign season.

Next up: Senator John McCain

Tags: Hillary Clinton, Campaign 2008, Campaign Websites, Mayfield Strategies

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 11:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Are the Presidential sites making the grade?

In the last two weeks, with the many announcements by presidential hopefuls like Senators Clinton and Obama, former Senator John Edwards (not to mention Governor Richardson, Senator Biden, Senator Brownback, Senator McCain, Representative Kucinich,…), a couple of blogs have been engaging in discussions about the IT worthiness of the campaign sites (see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]). Even the Bivings Report has begun evaluating the sites, with the first one being Hillary's (definitely check out the Flash analysis of the site by clicking on the graphic).

In reading these articles (and some are from friends of mine), they seem to reply on the simple tick-box evaluation (e.g. do they have a blog, can you donate, and so on) of the site features and pay little attention to the major goal of each campaign: capturing the contact details of the supporters and/or get a donation as quickly as possible. My effort will focus on this issue with a simple tradeoff: do they meet the need of the user/visitor/supporter? Will they succeed in their goals? Are they making the grade?

Serve the supporter, not the Finance Team
In 2004, the lesson seemed to have been – the bigger the list, the more money you get. This is simple direct mail calculus and tick-box management: build a big list, send out an email and a percentage will give an average amount. After each email, a percentage will drop out (due to frustration or spam blocking) and you continue the growth (or loss). Then, with the concepts of social networking, most sites offer a chance to find others you have similarities with - but seldom little else. Features and entertainment do not accomplish the success of the fundraising prowess of the Dean Campaign – rather, it is how the campaign engages the supporter that matters the most. As every political campaign learns (if they take the time to track), you usually get one chance to capitalize on the visit of a new user. If you lose them the first time, it is often tough to get them again.

After two cycles of web-enabled campaigns, and with 60% of American households with high-speed Internet access, we are now entering the the first true broadband political campaign in history. My question, their big money being spent? IMHO, most of the sites have a serious lack of human factors and usability in their site design. Using a phrase from Todd Zeigler of the Bivings Report, most take on the "swap meet" approach.

"Give me what I want!"
The goal of a campaign site – especially from an advocacy point of view - should be to engage the visitor and to truly enter a dialog of exchange - tit-for-tat. Give the visitor what they want, and they will often give you what you want. In evaluating the Presidential sites, it seems as though the sites have a different equation in mind: give us your email and/or money and we (might) give you what you want.

So, what is it that these visitors want? IMHO, three things seem to be of primary (pun intended) importance from my experiences in campaigns:

• Who is this person?
  From evaluating the traffic stats of major sites (from Presidential to Senatorial to Gubernatorial to Congressional), the second-most visited page on any political site is the biography page. Think about it: why else would a person come to a campaign site? Simply, to learn about the candidate. Unless they have been driven there by a specific call to action, they are looking to learn about the candidate. As a friend of mine once told me when she saw my first web site back in 1995, a website reflects the person it represents - is it all about ego, all about engagement or somethign in between? Remember, visitors are looking to connect with the candidate however they can. Do campaign sites do this effectively? Do they follow the basic premise of web content - simple, direct and easy to absorb?
• What does the candidate stand for?
  The next most popular page is often the Issues page – answering the basic question: how does this candidate stand on the issues I care about? Do they truly represent me? Here lies the minefield of modern politics: you can not take a stand until someone tells you want the people *really* want. And, we go from warmed-over soundbites to policy wonk theses that work on the Hill but not with John Q. Public (or Lois Lane for that matter).
• How can I (the supporter) get involved?
  If I already know about the candidate and I want to get involved with the campaign - how can I contribute (pun intended) to make the candidate win? And, if I am going to get involved, then make it easy for me to do so.
  
  While this is third on the list of most visitor's wants, this is often at the top of what the campaign wants. Actually, the priority goes: Give us your money, give us your email, give us your time, and give us your opinion – first, second and a distant third and fourth until the primaries start. Sounds pretty cynical, doesn’t it? But take a look at the sites, and tell me what you think.

It's about using technology to build a relationship
In the Valley, as a friend of mine writes, it is time to turn around the equation and focus on the customer need and want, instead of the company needs/wants. Everyone is able to offer the technology; it is how you use it that matters. With the various all-in-one solutions that are now available (see PoliticalWarez for a list of them), it is how the campaign message and energies are dedicated. So, with an eye on both technology and practice, I have been taken a bit of time to go through the major candidate sites for an evaluation of their performance. Since I have been doing a lot of teaching the past few months, I am going to use the metaphor of an IQ score for these sites, focusing on two factors:

• Are they smart in their design/technology use?
• Are they smart in their engagement strategy?

Please note that this is early in the campaign and IQ points can be awarded for learning at any time. And, as in IQ tests, 100 is an average score, 120 is an above average and 140+ is bearing on genius. We will assume that everyone has a starting IQ of 100 and move up or down from there.

To measure their smarts on design and technology, I am using the following questions to either increase or decrease their IQ:

1. First impression – does it brand the candidate or doesn’t it? Range: +5/-5
2. Call to action – is it obvious what the site wants you to do first? Second? Range: +5/-5
3. Signup – is it easy/painless? Range: +3/-3
4. Donation – is it easy/painless? Range: +3/-3
5. Activism – what is the breadth of tools? Are they easy to use? Range: +4/-4

To measure their smarts on voter/supporter engagement, I use the following questions to modify their IQ:

1. Equity – Is the site serving the candidate or me? Do I get what I want for giving my time to the site? Range: +10/-10
2. Engagement – Am I enticed to engage? Does the campaign work with me? Answer my questions? Is this truly a grassroots campaign? Range: +10/-10
3. Off-the-site Engagement – Does the campaign go where the voters are? Are they engaging/actively supporting content and/or community at myspace, YouTube, Meetup, Blogs, Forums, other social networks, etc. Range: +5/-5
4. Respect – Does the site treat me with respect as an active, engaged supporter or am I essentially a media sink/ATM to accept content/give money? Range: +5/-5

One thing I "enjoy" about political sites is that most political sites are about the candidate – as in the candidate running for a particular position or role. So far, every campaign I have evaluated seems to focus on the identity and/or ego of the candidate – hillaryclinton.com, richardsonforpresident.com, obama08.com, sambrownback.com – nary a one who understood the true concept of serving for the country (e.g. deanforamerica.com, peterforflorida.com). Granted, more polished operatives will suggest that this is a populist tactic that will not win the primary and/or the general election, but that is another wisdom I can not argue for or against. So instead, let me give you me evaluation on the sites as I have seen them over the next two weeks.

While there are a number of sites to evaluate, I will report on them as frequently as I can, limiting the number per post. As many of my readers know, I can write an incredible amount. I will try to chunk the information as best as possible to manage the information flow. And, rather than focusing only on the Democrats, I will discuss the Republicans as well - and maybe enjoying a few of the other party sites as well. Please give me your feedback and I will gladly discuss my humble opinion with you.

I must give thanks to a new site PresidentFeed and TechPresident for some new connections.

Tags: Campaign 2008 websites, Presidential websites

Posted by Sanford Dickert at 6:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack