As we are headling toward the Special Election to replace David Wu in Congress I've been working on our on line election guide. It's amazing how many of the candidates have nothing about themselves on the web. Can anyone win an election these days without having a web campaign? Interesting question and there is at least one candidate who needs some help when it comes to site design. Pavel Goberman rants on his site for pages and pages and pages. Orgininally from a country in the old Soviet Union, Pavel obviously glories in the freedom publishing on the internet provides. More power to him. His name comes up frequently as a candidate for office and he makes it quite clear that the media are against him and that's why he loses everytime. I suspect the results for him will be the same in this 1st District race.
Back to using the web...Perhaps we can glean some unique intelligence about the various candidates based on how they use the web. Brad Avakian's website looks like something the webmaster for the state of Oregon would crank out. Pretty flat. He is on Facebook. Saba Ahmed's website is quite interesting with various recordings of prayers being sung. She is obviously a devoted person. She has a Facebook site as well. Nice person. Probably too nice to be effective in this Congress. Suzanne Bonamici is a clever girl. You can see it in her web design. Very grassroots as opposed to the very corporate look Avakian puts out there.
I couldn't find a thing for former contractor Dominick Hammon. Local pro Dan Strite has had a web site forever. DiscountDansGolf.com. But nothing significant about the campaign and no Facebook page.
Strong candidates use the web effectively. In a world where most people under 30 get their news from The Daily Show and spend more time on FB or Myspace than watching TV and never pick up a newspaper it's critical to spend time on the web side of the campaign. The winner of this Congressional race will have done that and very well.
Back to using the web...Perhaps we can glean some unique intelligence about the various candidates based on how they use the web. Brad Avakian's website looks like something the webmaster for the state of Oregon would crank out. Pretty flat. He is on Facebook. Saba Ahmed's website is quite interesting with various recordings of prayers being sung. She is obviously a devoted person. She has a Facebook site as well. Nice person. Probably too nice to be effective in this Congress. Suzanne Bonamici is a clever girl. You can see it in her web design. Very grassroots as opposed to the very corporate look Avakian puts out there.
I couldn't find a thing for former contractor Dominick Hammon. Local pro Dan Strite has had a web site forever. DiscountDansGolf.com. But nothing significant about the campaign and no Facebook page.
Strong candidates use the web effectively. In a world where most people under 30 get their news from The Daily Show and spend more time on FB or Myspace than watching TV and never pick up a newspaper it's critical to spend time on the web side of the campaign. The winner of this Congressional race will have done that and very well.
With all of the options Blogger and Wordpress have to offer for free, it is quite simple to set up a website these days. I personally don't really care about the snazziness (or lack-thereof) of a website. I want to know what kind of message and the mission the candidate is on. Facebook and Twitter are both important tools for social interaction and should be integrated into any campaign.
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