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

Re:Romney

[Ethelred Unraed]

He's made some pretty drastic flip-flops over his career.

While still in Utah, he characterized himself as being pro-choice; then later said he didn't want to be called pro-choice; then while in Massachusetts, he suddenly came out strongly against abortion except for rape and incest. Needless to say I'm pro-choice, so that irks me more than a little.

He used to be for embryonic stem cell research; now he's against.

He also once wrote to the Log Cabin Republicans, claiming to be more pro-gay rights than even Ted Kennedy. Now he's against both civil unions and gay marriage, going so far as to support a Constitutional amendment for banning them. Since I happen to be for civil unions and for defining "marriage" as a religious, not a civil thing (i.e. anyone who's married would be in a civil union; a civil union would not necessarily be a marriage), that too irks me.

In other words, I get the distinct impression he's trying to make up to the religious right for being a Mormon by pandering to their positions. Since I 1) don't like it when politicians blatantly pander to anybody and 2) have a strong dislike of the religious right and 3) most especially don't like it when someone panders to the religious right, that makes Romney pretty iffy for me at best.

Cheers,

Ethelred

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?

Dr. Ron Paul for President! :)

[tres3]

I think Dr. Ran Paul is the best person for the job even though he is only exploring the possibility of a run at the moment. I hope people take the time to visit his sight and consider voting for him. http://www.ronpaulexplore.com/ You can get an idea of his political leanings from some of the MANY videos of him that are on the web. Most can be found here: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Ron+Paul He is against a war with Iran, wants to leave Iraq, and has a real plan to fix the Government's entitlement program. He first ran for President in 1988 as a Libertarian. Even though he is a Republican now he is an old fashioned one that believes in a small Federal government that is responsive to the people.

Libertarian Candidate George Phillies

[linguae]

The George Phillies for President site looks very nicely done, in my opinion. I would vote for the Libertarian candidate in the 2008 election unless Ron Paul wins the nomination for the Republican Party.

Netcrafts of each site

[I_am_Rambi]

Hillary Clinton - Registered via NetworkSolutions?!? Must have money to burn.
John Edwards - Can he make up his mind on a OS?
Barack Obama - Full Linux
Rudy Giuliani - Windows only, but only one entry
John McCain - From FreeBSD to MS? Did MS donate to you?
Mitt Romney - All but one Linux (that one is unknow, but I would say Linux)

Everyone but Hillary registered with GoDaddy

"Each party" ?

[OrangeTide]

Libertarian Part is a major party, they just aren't the top two players in national offices. But are quite popular in local and state elections. There are other parties besides the Libertarians too, but probably run Presidential candidates less consistantly.

Libertarian Candidate Websites:
http://phillies2008.com/ -- Physics Professor
http://www.kubby2008.com/ -- Author, Publisher, Political Activist, Cancer Survivor
http://www.christinesmithforpresident.com/ -- Author and Humanitarian
http://stanhope2008.com/ -- Stand-up Comedian

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!

Kneel before Zod!

[Dachannien]

Hey, you folks forgot somebody!

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

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:Sure, I'll chime in

[JavaRob]

You can always say we shouldn't have done it AFTER the fact. Yes, and when that's the case it's important to say that as soon as possible, and try to fix what you f*cked up. No?

Its where we are now though so stop complaining about it and suck it up. What about "learning from history"? If we admit we screwed up Iraq, we might do dealing better with, say, North Korea and Iran.

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"?

I know a plethora of US Marines that went over, alot of whom lost their lives. What they all had in common though was that they believed in what they were/are doing and they aren't sorry about going. This is why I feel so strongly about this -- when we screw things up, good people die. Don't disrespect their lives by saying "it doesn't matter whether the cause was right". Yes, it matters.