Reviewing the Presidential Campaign Websites

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.

Comments

Sure, I'll chime in

[Red Warrior]

I'm partial to Romney's for a couple of reasons.
First, of the Rs (that have announced), he is my top choice. (Observer bias)
Second, I personally know someone who worked on it. (Observer bias)
Third, Much as you said a "good professional site". Clean, crisp layout. Clean, crisp photos. Clean, crisp "stories".
Fourth, I disagree that it is near the bottom in in encouraging participation. You have the "Team Mitt" on the right. With the "Join" and "Contribute" links right under them.
Fifth, I like that white is the dominant background color, and the use made of white space throughout.

McCain - I give him second among the declared Rs. And yeah, about the black. I don't want to feel like *I'm* in a POW camp navigating the site. The site is too busy. My eye doesn't know where/how it's supposed to scan. And the fact that he would be a "hold my nose" candidate at best. (Observer bias)

Giuliani - WTF was he thinking. I didn't even SEE the nav bar across the top, and it starts out looking like a listserv sign up rather than a campaign site.

The Dems. Hell, I dislike all of them and wouldn't vote for any of them anyway. I would say that Obama is the most articulate & well spoken of the Dem field. However, I have been reliably informed that saying such a thing about a black candidate makes you racist. Though saying he is "clean" doesn't. Too bad, 'cuz Obama is a hell of a public speaker.

But as far as their sites. Mrs Clinton's is pleasing to the eye. Except for the images all over the place of... Hillary. Other than the pictures of Hillary, and all the text talking about Hillary, the only other real issue is the "One Week, One Million" with the "thermometer". It reminds me too much of United Way & Combined Fund drives. I find it tacky, especially on the main page.

Edwards (and Giuliani). W. T. F. ? Splash pages for your "home page" are bad enough. "Fill out this form" for your main page blows. Other than that, you nailed it with "disorganized mess". Actually, it's worse than that. A little clicking and mouse-overing convinced me that there actually is structure underneath. It's like they just went out of their way to crapify it.

Obama, what can I say? The site rubs me the wrong way aesthetically. I can't really put my finger on it with the time I'm willing to invest. It seems very similar to Hillary's objectively. Except for the pleasing to the (my) eye part. I don't like the "my.Obama" link buttons. (aesthetically. Not sure why.)

Of the Dems, Hillary gets first. Obama gets second (like McCain, he gets second on account of 3rd sucks).

I think the "seeming to encourage supporter action/participation." is a lot more subjective than you do. I find Romney's to score 1st in that category. It's important to keep in mind that these candidates (at least on the R/D split in general) websites are going to attract different eyes. Which are motivated by and respond to different things.

Re:Sure, I'll chime in

[encoderer]

Ok.... I have to bite here.

First, Senators are at a disadvantage due to a very large and esoteric voting record. The senate can be a tricky place. As much as John Kerry was a dumb fuck for actually SAYING "I voted for the $87bn before I voted against it," it's actually a pretty common scenario.

However, Kerry had 20 years in the Senate.

Of the top 3 dem contenders--all Senators or Ex Senators--Clinton has the longest Senate record at 6y 2mo, followed by Edwards at 6yr and Obama at 2yr 2mo. Much fewer time bombs. Especially considering Clinton had her eyes on the prize the whole way, and Edwards has already aired his Senate dirty laundry last time.

This is a very similar situation to JFK running in 1960 and not very similar to previous runs made by Senators.

Furthermore, how can you fully subscribe to a bias like "This nation doesn't elect Senators.." and NOT accept the bias of "This nation has never elected an Hispanic?"

And I have to say that I disagree with your overall political judgement a great deal. Rudy, for example, would take a General election in a walk. His values really do align with those of an average American. He his socially liberal and fiscally conservative. These are American values. This means that Rudy scares the hell out of me.

The only saving grace is that Rudy will almost surely not win the GOP Nomination, for exactly the same reason he would win a general. His is pro-abortion. He has pictures of himself in drag (everyone has the pics), he actually LIVED with a gay couple and their pet chihuahua. He is pro gay-rights. Pro gun-control. Etc. These views are anethma in the GOP.

And even if the moderates in their party make a power grab away from the christian right, they're not just going to stand by and take it. They have demonstrated their willingness to jump ship from the GOP in a general and run a third party. Of course they know they can't WIN but they do know they can split the GOP vote and they'll use that power in a second in 2008 if it puts them back in the drivers seat for picking a nominee in 2012. The christian right is the equivilant to minority support in the democratic party. You just cannot win without it.

I think it's clear to most watching that Richardson is running for Veep. He has issues as a nominee. He's not exactly trim and healthy looking (yes, this makes a diff. Clinton got a lot of bad press for this. But he was Clinton. He could over come it. Richardson is not Clinton in terms of raw political skill). He's not exactly an inspiring speaker. New Englanders, you say, don't fare well in generals, how do south-westerners fare? More importantly, he better makes serious waves very soon or he's not going to have the cash he needs to even make it to the first Caucus a year from now. Candidates are going to need to raise $100MM before 2008 ever hits the calendar. In democratic politics, the current top 3 candidates have a large amount of the cash men signed up. This is what the recent spat has been about between Obama and Clinton regarding David Geffen. Hillary has tried for months now to lock up the financing in her party to choke the supply lines of her competitors. If you're going to run a campaign that doesn't rely on traditional Dem money-raisers, you need a serious personality like Howard Dean to raise cash in smaller increments. So far Richardson hasn't even made the RADAR for most people. Yes it's early, but that doesn't matter. It's well under way.

And finally, Richardson has done this toe-dipping before. And he didn't generate much buzz then, and he probably won't this time, either. He's running for the Veep slot.

And for what it's worth, my candidate is Obama. I was sold when I read his book and I encourage all Americans to read it. It's not campaign literature like most candidate books. It reads as though he genuinely wrote it before he ever knew he was going to run in 2008, and in fact, that's likely what happened. He has a certain power. For example, this time last cycle, Howard Dean was bringi

Re:Sure, I'll chime in

[cduffy]

RECORD AS A LAWMAKER

Oooh, let's talk about that!

• Supported a ban on flag burning
• History of jumping on the "thinkofthechildren" bandwagon (ie. sponsoring legislation for banning violent computer games; photo ops with Jack Valenti; etc)

Admittedly, an analysis of her legislative history could go a lot deeper -- but a history of trying to capitalize on fear and disregarding freedom of speech is more than enough for me.

Re:Sure, I'll chime in

[flyingsquid]

I don't really give a rat's ass about Hilary's character, or lack thereof. Sure, most people might find George Dubya more easy-going, likeable, the type of guy you would hang out with over a beer. Fine, but he's just not remotely competent or qualified to run the country.

I just want someone who can do a reasonably good job solving the problems we all agree need solving. They can be a stiff nerd like Gore, a cold bitch like Hilary, a hothead who shoots off his mouth like McCain, a guy with zillions of ex-wives like Giuliani, or a Lovecraftian Elder God whose unpronounceable name inspires madness in all who hear it. I don't give a damn. Just so long as they do a halfway decent job of running an administration which finds practical solutions to the challenges facing our country such as Iraq, energy, education, immigration, and soforth.

I've had enough of principled candidates with character. Just get me someone who can do the fucking job. That's what we need- more pragmatism, people who are committed to getting shit done, enough of the naive idealists like the Neocons and Bush.

V for Vilsack

[sulli]

Too had Vilsack is out, I really liked his Nineteen Eighty-Four / V for Vendetta style graphics. But maybe this kept the proles away?

let firefox decide

[hobo sapiens]

Let's have Firefox and two of the most important applications for the web developer do the work for us: Firebug and the Tidy Validator (both firefox add-ons).

Hillary's looks nice, and the code tries to be semantic. Firebug found 2 javascript errors. Tidy found 8 markup validation warnings.

Edwards, nice site but a bit cluttered, code is just OK, 7 javascript errors, 7 markup validation warnings.

Obama: Nice site, one of my faves, but ugly code. 8 errors, 43 markup validation warnings

Guiliani: div and table tag bouillabaisse, 5 javascript errors, but almost validates against it's DTD (just 2 markup validation warnings).

McCain: U.G.L.Y., you ain't got no alibi! Horrid! 9 javascript errors, but as I mouse around it keeps tallying up. 77 markup validation warnings. I just didn't look at the code. I was too scared. I mean, he even made the flag black and white. I don't know, but I am sure there are some uber-patriots somewhere who are offended by that.

Romney: my fave site, ugly code. div soup. 22 errors, 9 validation warnings.

There you go, your candidates from a geek perspective. Let your browser decide!

Invalid candidates - nice try, all fail

[DrSkwid]

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 20 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!

http://johnedwards.com/ - Result: Failed validation / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because on line 341, 358, 371, 384-385, 396, 398, 408, 410 it contained one or more bytes that I cannot interpret as utf-8

http://www.barackobama.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 66 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!

http://www.joinrudy2008.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 8 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!

http://www.johnmccain.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 95 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!

http://www.mittromney.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 22 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict!

If these candidates used their web skills on Federal Websites, they could be exposing themselves to prosecution under the Disabilities Act.
http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/1194.22.h tm

Now we can decide

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to Netcraft; now we can pick our candidates more easily.
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Windows Server 2003

John Edwards: http://johnedwards.com/ Linux

Barak Obama http://www.barackobama.com/ Linux

Republicans
Rudy Giuliani: http://www.joinrudy2008.com/ Microsoft-IIS/6.0 John McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/ Windows Server 2003 Mitt Romney: http://www.mittromney.com/ Linux

Where's Ron Paul?

[bmajik]

How can slashdot NOT have a link to the only candidate that isn't in the "i love to shit on your freedoms, and i want to tax and steal your internet" business?

Ron Paul.

http://www.ronpaulexplore.com/

Re:Where's Ron Paul?

[bmajik]

Oh? So you forgot that he was one of the only people who voted against PATRIOT, and one of the co-sponsors of the rider on PATRIOT that denied arbitrary email reading provisions that the original had?

Ron Paul is generally against the federal government spending money -- even on tech programs. He is 100% pro freedom, against federal monitoring or censorship or any such issues.

I'd be surprised at how you might construe him as anti-tech. Maybe he's anti subsidizing tech but that's ultimately better for technology (government non-involvement is always best)

I'm legitimately interested in any thing you can find though. I want to be well informed.

Support for alternative browsers

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job supporting non-Flash browsers. Romney and Edwards are the only sites that don't require it for at least part of their sites.

Hillary's photo gallery requires Flash, so I didn't view it

Obama's site requires Flash. In fact parts of the site require the latest version of Flash.

Giuliani's site uses Flash for most of the photos

McCain makes extensive use of Flash right on his home page. Also, his page on Government Spending, Lower Taxes and Economic Prosperity has an out of place </b> tag which confuses Konqueror (version 3.3.2) and causes everything after Ending Pork Barrel Spending to appear bold.

Romney's site is the only one that appears to be designed to take advantage of Flash and provide an alterative to those who don't use it.

Edwards site has an annoying Flash-based advertisement before you can view the home page. I missed it originally because I don't use Flash. He has a variety of audio formats on the site. For some reason he only offers one format at a time. One topic is in WMA while another is in MP3.

Windows or OS X?

[To The Lighthouse]

Why is /. falling for the horse-race fallacy? It's like asking the question "Which is the best OS: Windows or Mac?" People who have announced or launched exploratory committees include Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Tommy Thompson on the Republican side, and Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson on the Democratic side. Do these candidates not have Web sites? Do the Green, Libertarian and Constitution parties not exist?

800x600 is dead

[Burlador]

None of these sites looks good at 800x600. It's not very convenient to have lines of text that are longer than the screen. I don't want to use horizontal scrolling for every line of text, Mrs. Clinton.

Way out on the Curve: Mike Smith (R) For President

[Broofa]

And for a bit of related randomness, check out the Michael Smith's website. Mr. Smith)is a Republican long shot whose website represents one of the better low-budget campaign sites I've seen.

The site hits all the key points - Easy to navigate, pleasing-yet-conservative visual design, and relevant content. The navigation bar along the top is easy to find and use, and not overly cluttered. The home page tells you right away who he is, and what his key platform issues are. It has a simple field for signing up to the mailing list, and links to his blog and MySpace pages.

I found the content to be the most compelling part of the site. He obviously has a personal hand in what goes into the site, and isn't afraid to speak his mind (within reason :-) ). A really refreshing change from the heavily filtered B.S. that most of the other candidates post, IMHO.

Anyhow... as an independent voter with democratic/liberal tendencies, I was surprised at how compelling I found this guy to be - and the site had a lot to do with that. It's just too bad that our democratic process makes it impossible (^h^h^h^h^h) unlikely that someone like this (sincere, reasonably forthright, hopefully not too tainted by the political gauntlet that most viable candidates must run) will ever get on the ballot.

*sigh*

Re:My thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also puzzled by the implicit assumption in your analysis that XHTML is somehow "better" than HTML. Care to explain what XHTML 1 accomplishes that HTML 4 doesn't?

Depends on your viewpoint. If you're simply an end user, and you don't know how either is generated, and both are valid, then it doesn't matter at all. But given those circumstances it would never occur to you to ask the question, would it?

If you're somebody who creates web sites, especially those which are dynamic in nature (and except for the occasional mom-and-pop brochure site, what isn't, these days?), the difference should be obvious. If it isn't, well, what can I say? It's kind of like the sphere trying to explain itself to the circle... if you were capable of understanding it, you'd already know, wouldn't you?

Re:Why do you say that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that they are all professional politicians and therefore all as bad as each other. Deciding who to vote for based on operating system is as good away as any.