Doyle’s Campaign Website is a joke. Let me elaborate.

Most important problem with this campaign’s website (and just in general) is the campaign logo. Doyle Lawton has the worst logo in the history of man. Let me explain what I think the logo team thought:

Let’s do an italic Doyle, then a smaller italic Lawton, put dark blue on the top and dark red on the bottom. Shows that Doyle is a man and Lawton is a woman. But it’s dark, so that means they are strong… Oh, and lets make it a square, forget about the fact that everybody has rectangle yard sign sticks at home. Italic text just wouldn’t stretch that far. We are going to make it so square that we can’t put any cool graphic, like Wisconsin! And lets forget it is a sign for a governor! We will just say their names and since he is never in the Journal Sentinel absofuckinglutely nobody will know what the hell they are voting for! “Doyle Lawton! I’m supporting Doyle Lawton for… whateverthefuck Mr. Doyle Lawton is running for…. You go for it Doyle!” I couldn’t think of any other candidate who has a logo and yard signs that really excites me and lets me know what is going on. Absolutely no other candidate. Nobody.

Doyle Team: Did you design your logo with MS Word? Because this only took 3 seconds:

I was going to put it in photoshop and make it look exactly the same, but it is 2AM and I have to get some sleep.

Anyways, let’s go on to their website.

Lets look at the header.

In the top left we see the logo previously mentioned. Only it is HUGE. What the hell?

Then we have some pictures of the candidates. They have halos around them because they took just about the worst pictures you could possibly put in photoshop…

wait! I’ve seen that picture of Doyle before!

Do a quick Google image search and we see that it is his portrait.

Lets go to his state-hosted online biography. Well, there ya go. The state is hosting the same portrat. In fact, the image you see directly above is hosted by the State of Wisconsin’s Servers.

If you have read my blog in the past you will have noticed that I got a press pass. Part of this meant that I got a nice press-kit. It comes with two glossy photos. The one above and… wow… a picture of the Lt. Governor that is exactly the same as the one I have. Only it is on a much lighter background, so obviously it will not work well on a dark header. Thus the halo.

What else is on top. The Home Page | Search | Site Map | Contact links are effective. If the middle two worked, of course. Site Maps are rarely on webpages now, they were created when people had very little bandwidth. Nowadays, it really isn’t required, and having it in the top right is just… annoying. Your site should be simple enough that you don’t need one. As for search, put a search box so you can enter what you want on the main page. Google Site Search should handle your needs for free.

Lets go down the front page.

I see his entire agenda on the front page. Can’t see what is going on in any of the pictures…

I don’t see any news about how the race is going, but his pictures the size of bullet points are great.

OH WAIT! I found the news! All the way on the bottom! A lot of people are going to scroll down to see your campaign news!

Bullshit. Nobody does. Do some research. Hell, I didn’t even notice it until now. I thought there wasn’t any.

They have some cool blogs I guess. Wait, no. Just press releases. No cool 1st person “Doyle went out today and I took some pictures and the event was really great, Doyle met a lot of people and there were even some dairy farmers that gave him some cheese and there were creme puffs. They were tasty… Governor Doyle is so cool… it was a fun day… etc. etc. he said that he wants Cows to start voting Democratic, that the Democrats were better for cows… it was really funny and everybody laughed…”

If it looked like that, people would actually read it! And probably comment. Those crazy cows.

And while we are at it, lets go over the color scheme. It is just too damn dark. Dark pages are for porn sites, not Gubernatorial campaigns (someone said that to me before, specifically mentioned gubernatorial campaigns too.)

Let me show you a page that has great use of lighter (see: white) colors. Fair Wisconsin. See: All of the data is positioned just right, with their content easy to access without scrolling down. The pictures are easily seen and the page is not crowded at all. I can still access all of the information I need with a click. The lighter colors allows more space between parts of the front page, and there are still pictures and news. Their positions are easy to access and, once you click on them, you get more options related to the item you clicked on. So you can read that page and go to more pages, all reasonably short, that give you the specific information you want. Fair Wisconsin’s site is small, but their design is scalable.

And their Blog is Beautiful. It has personal stories, big pictures that fit, and information about what they are doing from a personal standpoint. There are no press releases there, it is down to earth human emotion in those blog entries. I read it regularly, because the quality of the stories really draws me to it.

Mark Green’s site isn’t much better, although it is readable. Stop with the tabs on top, and if you do crappy grey scrolldowns like Green you are copping out.

Simple. Keep it simple.

And use valid html/xhtml. And if you run your site through The Bobby Accessibility Checker and find a single problem with Accessibility Priority 1 go back and redo the entire thing until it checks out. If you are a governor’s website, you need it to be accessible too people with disabilities. At least the Priority 1 items. Using compliant code should remove all priority 1 and should help people with disabilities navigate your site.

Now you can come back to me and say that my site sucks. It does. It uses an overused default page with crappy random headers (at least as of this writing.) It doesn’t validate at all. Most of the content is trivial. But I am not running a major campaign website.

Fix yours or you will loose votes.

Actually, screw that, fire whoever did the last one and get a new site. And for christ’s sake, get a new logo. Have a wider logo. Do you really need to have Lawton on the banner? If people are going to vote for Doyle, they are going to vote for Lawton. It is pricy to redo, but it is early enough that general public won’t notice. Recycle the ones you have now, and give me a few so I can patch up this hole I have in the basement.

I hope Mr. Doyle Lawton wins.

If you need help or opinions, email me

For the Doyle campaign: If I get some vibe that you want me to shut up and tell your field staff to never contact me or have your field staff disown me. Fine. You lost a good volunteer who cares. I’m not removing this, so don’t ask. I stand by every word.

Also, if I worked for a campaign, I would never do this without the campaign’s approval. Would probably keep you in the loop about your own website, just so you know.

OK, so lets go over what is going on in July, at least the first few weekends.

First day is this Saturday. Helping a friend move from his duplex to a house 3 blocks away (if I remember correctly.) Sounds like a fun event.

First week, we have the Fourth of July. Not sure what we are doing. Usually we have some sort of cookout, but this year everybody seems so busy that such an event may not take place. I can figure out something to do.

A few clients of mine are in town, so I will definitely go out and spend some time with them. If I can budget it for the month.

Summerfest has already started, so I may go out and do something there. No major acts that I want to see, but it will be a good excuse to go outside and listen to some music.

Second week: Pretty quiet, until Friday

Second Weekend: Leave Friday for Pontiac, Illinois, get back the following Sunday.

Third Weekend: College Democrats of America convention in St. Louis. Leave Thursday the 20th, Get back Sunday the 23rd. College Dems of Wisconsin are ponying up for carpools and housing. That’s always cool.

From there on out I have to figure out stuff to do. I’m sure I will be out with friends quite a bit, well, enough, during the time that I am not doing something major. Maybe I can sell some more

OK, so I was watching the Colbert Report a few nights ago and Stephen was interviewing another congressperson about what their district is about and essentially the profile of the congressperson. He ALWAYS makes fun of the congressperson, it’s funny. Cool.

So this time he was interviewing Georgia Congressman Lynn Westmoreland (Official Biography.) Looks like a stand up guy, southern accent, your general off the street joe who found ambition. Well, at least he looked like it. He owned a construction company and did some real-estate. Found his calling in the Georgia House of Representatives, which, if it is like it here, is a part time gig (correct me if I am wrong.) Whatever, click on his name above and you will figure it out.

So the interview is going well and he comes to the part where he has to name the 10 commandments. Well, he can’t. He figures out three and one of them is only partially correct (click on his link and go to the bottom, something about “don’t lie” is vague.) He was one of the 4 co-sponsor of a 10 commandments Bill that would put the commandments in the House of Representatives and he can only name three.

So I thought it was hilarious, the whole “hah that’s some funny shit right there.” It ends at that.

Then it’s posted on the video hosting site YouTube, all the political blogs go nuts, BoingBoing covers it.

All of a sudden this guy represents all of the Republican wing of the House of Representatives. Is he an idiot for answering that question, absolutely. I don’t care if he knew them or not, he shouldn’t have answered the question. Is it an earth shattering event, or the first time a vote has been made fun of, no way in hell.

Some background: He is a first term Republican Congressman from Georgia who hasn’t introduced anything yet and seems to just be co-sponsoring shit. 190 such co-sponsorships as of June 17 (search for it.) Oh, and one sponsorship an amendment on House Resolution 4437 (some immigration (not the recent one) bill sponsored by my asshat representative Jim Sensenbrenner.)

I would have at least introduced an Amendment to the Constitution that makes July 10th Spiderman/Batman/Superman Day. Except in Rhode Island. They don’t get to have Spiderman/Batman/Superman Day.

Alright, I’m up and ready for the day today. After waking up at 4AM.

So, I’m on a “diet.” Not much of a diet, just quitting my consumption of 4-8 cans of Coke a day. A lot of calories to remove. Oh, and no all sugar foods.

So, there are some brownies on the top of the stove, so I cut a small piece and put it on a plate. Then I took out a tall glass and took out some of the 2% Milk I was drinking. But before I recycled the empty bottle I looked at the label. Well, not much sugar, but then I looked down. 28% of a 2000 Calorie diet, and that is just one of the at least 3 cups I was drinking in that what glass. The brownie had fewer calories than the glass of milk. And I was drinking like 2-4 tall glasses a day. Every day.

What the hell. That is why I am so big and barely eat anything.

Now is the day to switch to skim milk. Isn’t as tasty, but the difference isn’t as different as say a diet cola from its high fructose corn syrup older brother.

According to Wikipedia, Coffee has mind altering properties.

I say that as I sit here in the coffee house… again.
With Eoban… again.
Typing about it… again.
Drinking half of my coffee until it gets cold… again.
Then buying more coffee and drinking only half of that until it gets cold… again.

Better than spending my time in the basement watching movies… again.

I have The Deer Hunter on the computer.
Haven’t seen that yet. Christopher Walken kicks ass