The New GOP Website Launch

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

It's buggy and ugly.  It crashes.  But Marc Ambinder compiles the other things wrong with the launch:

Top Ten Reasons Why The GOP Website Relaunch Is Fizzlin'

10. In a section devoted to "future leaders," there were none

9. In the subsequent rush to get up a "future leaders" page, they choose "you."
8. The last GOP accomplishment cited on the accomplishment page was from 2004. 
7. The what's up page — hip! starts with this sentence: ""the internet has been around for a while now" [NOTE from Ken:  the "what's up" page, written by GOP Chairman Michael Steele, was actually called the "What Up" page, because the GOP is hip, fo' rizzle, word to your mother.  After a day of laughter, the GOP changed it to "Change The Word" because the GOP loves change… or… something.]
6. Administrator passwords were accidentally posted
5. When the RNC hosted a kick-off conference call, the website was down. 
4. The website cites Jackie Robinson as a GOP hero. Robinson wasn't a GOPer, and he criticized the GOP on race. Robinson left the party because of its views on race. He had been, as a reader points out, a Republican for many years.
3. The first question on the conference call was from an Hispanic Republican who asked why the GOP site didn't have a Spanish-language page and noted that the White House had one. 
2. Bragging about web redesigns is so 2004.

1. It's not timed with the start of any major advocacy campaign — or political campaign. And it portrays itself as something it's not: diverse and ready to embrace new ideas. That may be what the party leadership aspires to, but, at least when it comes to diversity, a few pictures of Hispanics and African Americans doesn't make up for … well, the history of the party.  

Also… referring to Ronald Reagan as Ronaldus Magnus (latin for "Ronald the Great") strikes me as ingratiatingly over the top.  Seriously?  A monarch title?