Campaign Websites 


A review of the websites for the three candidates seeking the US Senate Seat in Pennsylvania 

In past major elections (both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections) I have reviewed the websites of all of the major candidates. This is the first time I've posted one such review on my blog, rather than in an e-mail to friends and online discussion lists.

I look at the websites without regard to my opinion of each candidate. In 2004, when I reviewed the nine Democrats' websites (at the time, Bob Graham was a candidate and Wesley Clark hadn't announced his candidacy), I considered it an interesting point of order that, in my opinion, the best website also belonged to the one candidate who would not have gotten my vote, Joe Lieberman.

Both the Republican and Democratic Parties view the Pennsylvania senate race in 2006 as one of the most pivotal elections next year. Running unchallenged within his party is Republican incumbent Rick Santorum. The Democratic party has two major candidates: Bob Casey, Jr., and Chuck Pennacchio. Casey has received many endorsements from the party establishment, and even the endorsement of moveon.org , which propelled Howard Dean to early frontrunner for the 2004 elections.

Now for the website reviews:

Rick Santorum -- I have to admit that I have a hard time telling whether this website is intended to be a website to trump up the Senator's work as a senator, or if it is intended to be a campaign website. I'm leaning towards calling it a campaign website if for no other reason than the prominently displayed link to donate money. Not that there's any harm in soliciting money for a campaign, but it doesn't need to be so in-your-face. For someone with all of his contacts and power within the Republican Party, though, I would have expected something better. On a scale of 1 to 10, this site gets a 6.

Bob Casey, Jr . -- This website is almost as ugly as the website Carol Moseley Braun had for her presidential campaign in 2004. (Which I'm surprised is still up... Here's the link ...) I'm glad Casey writes, in the second sentence at the top of the site, that he's running for Senate because I never would have guessed that by the URL. I know from news reports that he's serious about taking over the Senate seat from Santorum, but you never would guess that from the way this site is set up. This site gets a 4.

Chuck Pennacchio -- Love the icons and images along the left-hand side of the page. Hate the information overload he gives you on the main part. In 2000, when Ralph Nader was a serious candidate for president, I thought the website suffered from information overload. Not that I object to providing voters with as much information as is deemed necessary to help them decide for whom to vote; it's just that it doesn't need to be entirely on the main page of the candidate. Bottom line, if there is anything you want to say, and it takes more than a paragraph to communicate, put the second and subsequent paragraphs on a different page, dedicated to a more complete discussion of the topic. This site gets a 5.

All three candidates should be thankful that I do not base my vote solely on the quality of their websites. Truth be told, if I were to base my decision on that point, none of them would get my vote.
 

Posted: Sat - August 27, 2005 at 07:39 AM          

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