Archive for the ‘Political Web Design’ Category

Ember Reichgott Junge funding link: charter schools

Monday, August 21st, 2006

Why are Republican donors, including a Bush Pioneer, contributing to Ember Reichgott Junge’s campaign for Congress?

For some of Ember’s Republican supporters, including Bush Pioneer J.C. Huizenga , the answer may lie with Junge’s position as a nationally recognized proponent of charter schools.

In 1991, Junge made history by authoring and passing the nation’s first charter school legislation.

J.C. Huizenga is founder and chairman of National Heritage Academies (NHA), a for-profit educational management company based in Grand Rapids, MI. NHA was sued by the Michigan ACLU who accused NHA for evangelizing in the classroom and teaching creationism as science.

John Sackler, a Republican donor who has given considerable funds to George W. Bush, the RNC, Ted Stevens, Joe Lieberman and Ember Reichgott Junge can be seen here testifying for Connecticut’s General Assembly in support of charter schools.

In the “Education” section of Junge’s campaign website charter schools are never mentioned. Under the section labeled “The Gift of Public Service”, charter schools are mentioned once in item 6.

However, the section used to link to this page which featured charter schools prominently.

Why is Junge actively downplaying her support of charter schools?

UPDATE: MN Publius has their take here.

Amy Klobuchar re-launches web site

Tuesday, August 15th, 2006

Amy Klobuchar has redesigned and re-launched her campaign website. It looks great and is even W3C compliant now! Congratulations go to web designer David Krewinghaus and the campaign staff at Klobuchar HQ.

Gravity vs. Force in political communications: Lamont vs. Lieberman

Thursday, August 3rd, 2006

In keeping with the physics metaphor used in the earlier post, Lamont and Lieberman’s communications can be compared in the same fashion of gravity versus force.

Gravity is caused by mass - the more mass at a singular point, the more that point will attract other masses. In politics, gravity is also caused by mass - masses of voters, of supporters, of people. The fundamental particle of physics is people.

Once a campaign has a critical mass of people, the rest simply falls into place. The vast majority of challenges a campaign will face can always be solved by people. Lieberman’s campaign has no one. The campaign is like a neutrino which cannot (or will not) interact with anything else.

If gravity is lost, movement can only be caused by force.

Lieberman’s entire campaign structure is based around the use of force. Not physical force - mental force. Every speech, every debate, every ad has been about Lieberman or his proxies telling his voters who to support. On Lieberman’s campaign web site, there is a section called “Joe’s Supporters“.

Meet the “supporters” below the fold.

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