On The Download: And The Oscar For Best Congressional Web Site Goes To…
Welcome back to On The Download, your dispatch on politechs: Politics, Multimedia and the Internet. If you have tips, comments, or suggestions, email us.
A few weeks ago, On the Download reported on the sorry state of official Congressional Web sites, including citing an upcoming report from the Congressional Management Foundation on that topic. The non-profit group issued a report card today evaluating 615 taxpayer-funded Web sites from the 109th Congress, including those hosted by members, committees and leadership.
The best of the lot were awarded with Gold, Silver, and Bronze Mouse Awards, although CMF called the overall state of Congressional Web sites “disappointing” with about 39 percent of Web sites receiving a substandard or failing grade. Out of all of the studied Web sites, 18 received a Gold award, 27 received Silver and 40 received a Bronze rating. Evaluations were based on what the committee called the pillars of a good Congressional Web site: Audience, Content, Usability, Interactivity and Innovation.
You can read the full report here (www.cmfweb.org.), but here are a few notable findings:
*Only Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., Senator Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, and Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have received an award each of the three times the report has been released in 2002, 2003 and 2006.
*Republican Web sites scored higher than Democratic ones, with 69 percent of GOP sites scoring at least a “C” grade compared to just 56 percent of their Democratic counterparts.
*The report notes that there’s a relationship between the Web site grade and this year’s election margins. Members who received less than 50 percent of the vote in 2006 had the highest percentage of Web sites with an “F” score.
Drum roll please… The following House and Senate members received a gold award for their Web site: Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., Marion Berry, D-Ark., Earl Blumenauer D-Ore., Mike Honda D-Calif., John B. Larson, D-Conn., John Linder, R-Ga., Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Jeff Miller R-Fla., Dennis Moore, D-Kan., Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., and Sens. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rick Santorum R-Pa. CMF declined to release a list of the Web sites that received failing grades [SHIRA TOEPLITZ].
McCain Does AOL Ad Buy
Although Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just re-launched his exploratory committee Web site last week, he has been upping his Internet presence well before that with advertisements on America Online. The Republican has been running targeted banner ads on AOL to Republican voters across the country.
AOL has been matching voter files to its subscriber database since before the 2004 campaign, according to Michael Bassik, MSHC Partners VP of Internet Strategy and former head of the AOL political advertising strategy division during that last Presidential election. Bassik said a third party vendor would match the AOL subscriber list with that from a political organization to target specific users. Although commercial vendors have been using AOL to target customers for years, 2004 was the first time political candidates and organizations tried it – and now John McCain is the first candidate to do so for 2008.
It’s a unique strategy for McCain, who enjoys high name identification numbers with the general public but is often panned by the conservative blogosphere. The AOL ad campaign has been under the radar for political insiders who don’t often use the subscription-based online service.
A source with knowledge of this specific ad buy said the rate of return increased incrementally as a direct result of the buy, however campaign spokesman said he did not want to reveal the size of the ad buy for strategic reasons.
The online newsletter Clickz first reported the McCain ad buy in January.
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