Capitol View: June 6, 2006 Archive

Who's the leader of the band in the California 50th?

Posted at 8:07 AM on June 6, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Voters in eight states are going to the polls today. Only one will result in someone actually being elected. In Southern California, voters are selecting someone to replace the felonious Duke Cunningham.

I have not followed the race closely -- OK you got me, I haven't followed the race at all -- but this is tough sledding for Democrats usually and they're putting up a school board member as candidate? Really? From the school board to the halls of Congress?

Of course she did work for the Walt Disney folks. (Insert your own Mickey Mouse joke here)

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Housekeeping

Posted at 10:45 AM on June 6, 2006 by Bob Collins

I'm in back-from-vacation mode, cleaning up a few things etc. I've added the audio of speeches at the GOP convention (Kennedy, Pawlenty, Bachmann, Ramstad) to their individual pages on the Campaign 2006 site. I also added Pawlenty's re-election announcement. All of these were, of course, available on the individual story pages but I like to keep a fairly robust collection of audio on each candidate page.

Candidate Web sites - 6th District

Posted at 11:20 AM on June 6, 2006 by Bob Collins

For about the last 5 months I've been wanting to write a review of the various candidate Web sites that are out there. Some of them are doing some pretty interesting things. But I haven't had time and I realize that I'll have to bite this off in chunks.

The most impressive thing I've seen all campaign season on any candidate site is, unfortunately, from a candidate who is no longer in the race. Kelly Doran has a novel approach to laying out the issues. He'd speak to them, and then he'd provide direct links to his opponents' Web pages that spoke to the same issues so people could compare. Of course, he's out of the race now, so maybe mentioning the other candidates wasn't such a hot idea. But I appreciated the honesty and effort anyway.

So let's look at the 6th District where, today, Patty Wetterling's revamped site has gone "live."

Patty Wetterling - The feature item is a video of Wetterling's life. It's Flash 8 and it should have navigation controls and sliders if there is audio. My bosses here always tell me when I build a Flash presentation to not have it play automatically. I think this is because otherwise folks at work who really shouldn't be watching and playing stuff they found online (they should be working, I hear) might get caught if all of a sudden stuff blares from their computer. The issues section is pretty robust, with short paragraphs (that don't reveal a lot), leading to individual pages on the issue that do. My main objection is there are only six of them -- Iraq, the 2nd Amendment, Health care (Medicaid etc), veterans, education, and Social Security.

I believe these are the same 6 that were on the old issues site.

There's also a "latest news" section that has only two items , neither of which can be classified as "latest," or even "news" for that matter. They're both from February. I'm guessing a few things have happened in the Wetterling campaign since February.

There's also a calendar area, but it doesn't tell me if the candidate is going to be at the events, or imply that the fact they're listed means she is. They're also not organized chronologically. C'mon, it's a calendar; how else can you organize it?

And there are two sign-up areas that seem pretty standard and efficient -- one to volunteer, another to contribute.

Points off for not having a schedule of the candidate's activities. A media section (with high-res photos etc.) probably wouldn't be a bad idea. But points added for being a pleasant design, easily navigable, and technically functional.

Michele Bachmann - Right off the bat the first thing I notice is that the color scheme is pretty much identical to the Wetterling site, although, I suppose it's impossible to run for Congress and not have some combination of red, white & blue.

One thing I liked was a search function. I searched "Wetterling," just for kicks. Nothing. Then I searched "legislature" and got a letter from the Bachmann kids, then I searched "marriage" and got a whole bunch of stuff. So I guess the search function works.

Her biography section is quite robust. But the issues section is weak, extremely weak. There are only 7 issues listed and only bullet points on each one. I'm looking for extensive white papers from the candidates at this point. There's a press room with some -- ready? -- press releases (put some high-res pix in there too) that the "press" would never run as is. There's no candidate schedule.

I like the idea of blogs on candidate pages because the candidates who "blog" get "it." "It" being that an Internet site is not a brochure that you hand out, it's an intimate method of communication that is different than any other medium. Unfortunately, the last entry in the blog is February 22. The previous one was December 8. Useless; completely useless.

I like the fact she has an "on the radio" section, but there are only three entries for it -- two in February and one in 2004 discussing defense of marriage with a radio station in Missouri. Missouri? Hmmm, I wonder if the candidate has ever been on the radio talking about the issue in, you know, Minnesota? In 2006.

All in all it's a functional site, easily navigable that appears as though someone with talent set it up one day, turned it over to the campaign, which then abandoned it.

John Binkowski -- The news here is that the color scheme is not red, white & blue but green & orange. I haven't visited the site for a month or so and it's changed -- and for the better. But there's still a way to go.

The best part about the site -- from my perspective anyway -- is a rootin' tootin' blog that the candidate actually posts to. I think. It appears to have only one entry, but at least it's from this month.

There aren't a lot of sections to the site and there aren't a lot of things in each section. The issues section is fairly spartan with a half dozen issues indicated, but the design of the site loads that section in a weird way and I haven't figured it out yet. Whatever, the server can't handle the demand (1) and on a "back" push, it loaded only 2 of the issues. A look at the source code shows what appears to be a flat file, but it may be a database. In any event, sometimes you can design non-functionality right into your page if you're not careful.

I did like the list of events because it indicates that the candidate is attending them.

The contribute site lists an address to which you can send a check. It appears to have no online submission capability.

I really think if you're a third party candidate -- and don't ask me to explain this -- you have access to a large group of Web-savvy volunteers that would probably be happy to push more content to the site and add in some features to reach and motivate a potential audience that looks favorably upon the Web.

* * *

So that's it, in the order I visited. I really think most candidates aren't putting enough into their Web sites and then not taking advantage of what they can do for a candidacy. And I don't mean that idea that Kerry had of just saying "go to my Web site" and packing everything there (a very bad idea), but really using the site to have an actual campaign online.

Blogging, would be the first thing I'd do with any candidate site, once the framework of contributions, schedules, issues, and biography are taken care of.

Convention preview

Posted at 3:20 PM on June 6, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

Just got out of a quick production meeting in advance of this weekend's DFL convention in Rochester. We're going to do pretty much the same thing online as we did with the GOP convention. That is, we'll provide a live stream of the podium for the duration of the convention, starting at 10 a.m. on Friday...through the entire lengthy gubernatorial battle on Saturday, and the other constitutional offices on Sunday.

Gary Eichten and his band of merry political reporters will do Midday on Friday from Rochester. And they'll be cut-ins through the day on Saturday. No radio coverage is planned on Sunday. A slight complicating factor is a pledge drive begins on Thursday. The radio stream will also be available online, so you'll get a choice of what you want to listen to.

My job is concentrating on the online portion of things. I'm interested in whether you found any value in the live stream for the GOP confab?

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Jeffers still in

Posted at 4:41 PM on June 6, 2006 by Bob Collins

Sue Jeffers says she's running in the GOP primary, despite the endorsement of Pawlenty last week by the GOP.

Bush for Kennedy

Posted at 9:56 PM on June 6, 2006 by Bob Collins

Tom Scheck has a fascinating piece about tonight's fundraiser for Rep. Mark Kennedy, hosted by Laura Bush, wife of the person whose name some Republicans dare not speak. Also you can find her whole speech on the upper ride side of the story.

By the way, maybe it's happened before but I subscribe to the Washington Post RSS feed on votes. It's kind of a waste because the feed doesn't tell you EXACTLY what the bill being voted on was about (I mean, I suppose one could figure out that the "Striving for Excellence in America Act of 2006" was actually a bill to allow bars in Oklahoma to stay open until 4, but ...), but it's interesting nonetheless.

Today I saw something on my feed I've never seen before: Mark Kennedy not voting. He's always been quite proud of his perfect attendance record, and he did warn us he was going to ditch a few votes because of the campaign, it was just odd to see it in black-and-white. Doesn't look like they needed him. The Homeland Security Appropriations Act passed with all but 9 voting for it.