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UPDATED: No Issues?

BY Alan Rosenblatt | Sunday, April 22 2007

Note: Since this post originally went up, the Clinton campaign has added an issue link on its navigation menu.
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I go to a presidential candidate website, I want to know issues. They may want my money and my email address, but I want to know what I would get if I give a candidate my vote.

I went to Rudy’s website, found the issues page and got a big picture of him with cops, then a list of generic issues with a short paragraph after each. I want more detail. And I expect every candidate to provide me a detailed issues section.

Then I went to Hillary’s site. I was stunned. There is no issues page. Sure, there is plenty of issue-related content on her blog and in the news clippings, but nothing as easy as a list of issues with a short paragraph. Not even a search function to compensate.

Why do voters go to candidate websites? They go to learn about the candidate.

Campaigns should design their sites to meet the needs of the voters? But some are still designe to meet their own needs, first. To feed their coffers, collect names and addresses.

But my needs? The voters’ needs to be informed? Who is satisfying these?

Biden’s got lots of detail on his site in an issues section? So does Dodd, Obama, Edwards. Romney, McCain… everyone except Hillary.

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