Jim DeMint, “Senator 2.0″ – Part 1

While I’ve never been a fan of the well-marketed term “web 2.0,” the concepts and applications that are defining this “second generation” of the internet have completely reshaped the face and perspective of American politics, particularly on the grassroots level.

Understanding the great reach that social networks, wikis, blogs, etc. can have in terms of targeting an audience of potential activists, there have been some politicians who have greatly embraced these technologies and integrated them into their campaigns. Even though I think that the majority of those running for office don’t realize, or simply ignore the importance of utilizing the internet well as a means to reach a larger audience, there are a few politicians, who without a doubt understand the stakes and opportunities a well-run online campaign can create.

Of all of the sites that I have looked at and have been researching for the updated version of a paper I originally wrote in 2007 (research conducted throughout 2006), “The New Political Stump: Campaign Web-Style in Senate Elections – Campaign ‘06” (which I’ll probably post soon), there is one incumbent Senator that stands out more than any of the incumbents that I have researched, Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina.

In 2006, I focused primarily on three areas of the campaign website: website style, components and personalization, then compared their online methodology/approach to the “on the ground” interaction discussed in Home Style: House Members in Their Districts by Richard Fenno . For the updated 2008 paper (which I hope to have completed shortly after the election), the analysis of website style, component usage, personalization and comparison to Homestyle will still remain, however I have also added a new category to track: update frequency.

While campaign season is far from over, in looking at the incumbent website from both sides of the aisle, it appears the Jim DeMint will probably be the leader of the pack.

The DeMint online approach, while being extremely clean and simple, has a variety of components that I think could and should be analyzed in detail, and hopefully other Republican incumbents will try and implement some of the same strategies and techniques into their websites.

Instead of writing a 10,000 word+ post on my thoughts of the DeMint online strategy I’ve decided to break it into sections, and am hopeful that people will share their ideas, strategies and/or feedback.

Part 1: The Landing Page

On Senator DeMint’s main campaign site, http://www.jimdemint.com, the first thing you’ll see each time you come to the page is an opportunity to sign-up. However, instead of just saying “join our email list” like some sites have done, the DeMint campaign has used a pledge to take the place of a traditional landing page sign-up. This approach is one that I have seen grow slowly as campaign websites evolve, and I’m confident that with this evolution will be an increase in the number of email addresses they acquire.

The appeal of a landing page is something that will make or break a particular online outreach campaign (of course, design sometimes plays a factor too). It’s common in politics for politicians to make sure that their messages touch on at least one of Aristotle’s means of persuasion. While establishing ethos (credibility), pathos (emotional) and logos (logic) appeals on a singular level might work for some things, if you don’t have all three of those on your landing page, delivered in a small package (in terms of words count), people are going to be suspicious, or not be captivated by your site and simply leave.

DeMint has two landing pages in particular that I think are extremely effective: one at http://www.jimdemint.com/ and one that was just released at http://www.completethefencenow.com/. Of the two, http://www.jimdemint.com/ , while not being perfect, is a great example of implementing all three of Aristotle’s means of persuasion in campaign websites.

Taking Aristotle’s means of persuasion into consideration, here is my take on how these landing pages establish them:

• Ethos – Using this appeal is one advantage that any incumbent will have over their opponent, simply because the title “Senator,” “Congressman,” etc. will usually grant instant credibility on the message you are trying to push (despite continually low approval ratings). DeMint’s main landing page does this well, with the words “Senator Jim DeMint” being prominent in the pledge. However, Senator DeMint’s newest landing page doesn’t have the word “Senator” displayed in any prominent location, which could have some impact on the response. Though I will argue that it’s always beneficial to have different landing pages running in tandem so you have something to compare data against to better establish what works best.
• Pathos - Money and border security, I don’t know what other issues could have more emotional appeal.
• Logos - Instead of using text to explain why the visitor should take immediate action on this issue, Senator DeMint does something that I wish more incumbents would do: get on YouTube. In doing so, the page viewer actually sees and hears him delivering his message. One could argue that the videos alone touches on all three of the means of persuasion, but it definitely plays a huge role in establishing the rationale for why people should take immediate action on this issue.

Take note of the emphasis on immediate action. You’ll notice that there aren’t any links that would take the visitor off of the campaign site. Like most Americans, I suffer from web-based ADD and that is something that should be taken into consideration when candidates design their landing pages and websites. For example, a candidate’s website probably shouldn’t link to sites other than their campaign site, simply because one new link or idea can completely destroy a thought process and kill the chance of a conversion.

Along those same lines, when there are links on a candidates page, I think that they should open in a new tab, especially if there is any deviation in subject matter and/or design. This way, if people get bored with the new window, when they close that tab, they will still have the initial page that they clicked on still in their browser. The one caveat to this would be the link following the “submit” button, where in that instance I don’t see any reason why they would need the next page to open in a new tab.

While I think both of DeMint’s landing pages are far more creative than many that I have seen amongst incumbent campaigns, the one major change that I would suggest is changing the pledge on http://www.jimdemint.com/. While the message is good, I don’t think its the best idea to have such important text displayed as an image.

Aside from it not getting cached by search engines, it also increases the page load time (that image alone is 100k). Beyond that, I think that every Republican should make sure their sites are as inline with the standards of Section 508 as possible, simply because I haven’t seen many campaign websites (incumbent or challenger) that have followed this protocol.

I look forward to the day when a Republican Senator is attacked by a Democrat, saying that Senator XYZ doesn’t care about making government accessible to everyone, then having Senator XYZ come back saying that not only does he think government should be accessible, but he also believes that campaigns should be accessible, then outline how he went the extra mile to ensure Section 508 compliance, while his opponent made no apparent effort to even come close to increasing their accessibility. Let’s be honest, simple things like alternative text (alt) descriptions aren’t that difficult. My inner-geek anxiously awaits the day I hear a candidate use the “alt-descriptions” and “clean code” in a response.

One example of how Republicans could have fun with this would be with Senator Chris Dodd (CT), who somehow won a Golden Mouse Award and been a self-proclaimed leader in the Senate for those with disabilities. However, if you visit his Golden Website, you’ll notice that it’s nowhere near section 508 compliance. What’s even more amusing is when visit the page “Dodd Introduces Disabilities Savings Act of 2008” not one of the images has alternative text, so even if a person with disabilities wanted to be more interactive with the site of the Senator who is a “leader” for those with disabilities, and maybe get a description of the pictures so they could visualize what is happening, not even his site offers those capabilities. Of the Section 508 requirements, the alt-descriptions are probably the easiest things any site can fix.

I’m not trying to attack Senator Dodd, in fact, he is one of the few Democrats in the Senate who I can actually tolerate. However, I’m just using him as an example to show some of the opportunities that could be made if incumbents and candidates got ahead of the curve and made the Dem’s follow.

It should be noted that on Senator DeMint’s office page, his images do provide alternative text. Why didn’t he get a Golden Mouse?

Yes, I’m a deep thinker. Though I will concede that I haven’t really gone out of my way to achieve section 508 compliance on any of my websites, though CMS’s like Joomla 1.5 and its tableless designs have made significant strides towards making compliance easy to implement (I’m sure Drupal is similar in that sense).

In the next few days I’ll write Part 2: Website Style

Note: I do not consider myself an expert on any of this. Instead, I base my judgments on the research and implementations I’ve been conducting and analyzing since 2005. If you disagree, or would like to elaborate on any points or observations that I’ve made, please leave comments. Also, this post contains no direct text from either version of my papers. With that being said, each of the thoughts mentioned are my own, thus have no need for attribution. If you’re doing research on a similar topic and need help finding established text to cite, I’d be happy to provide you with some good starting points.

Other good bloggers to check out for similar subject matter (style, marketing, etc):

• David All (TechRepublican.com)
• Joe Mansour (TechRepublican.com)
• Patrick Ruffini (PatrickRuffini.com)
• Then everyone else at TechPresident.com

If you know of any others, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.