I don’t want to sound like a broken record about Republican websites that miss the mark — this time the NRCC’s TheRealDemocratStory.com — and luckily, Mike Turk has already made most of my points already, especially the lack of a blog (though he does offer some fair praise). So let me just add one thing, using as example the main content from the page of Jerry McNerney, the lefty netroots-supported representative from California:
Not that the supplemental bill was primarily about Homeland Security, but if you read the whole thing, you’ll get where they’re going with this. The left-hand column represents a campaign promise and the right-hand column represents the alleged breach. But you don’t know this until you’ve actually read it (and even then it may not be crystal clear). Now try this:
I don’t know about you, but if I understand what each column means before I read it, the chances are a lot better I’ll start reading in the first place — and then continue to see how the compare-and-contrast plays out. You don’t need to dumb down your materials, but you do need to organize them with the expectation that your readers lack patience. That’s just the nature of the medium.
P.S. What does it mean when, after the first day the site is public, the most popular site linking to it is an upper-middle tier liberal blog, the second-most popular site linking is a Beltway news site? Just asking.