Not to be overly cynical, but I do not think you will find much substance on most issues on most campaign websites. When I was in the GOP candidate training several years ago there 2 things they "strongly suggest[ed]" for all of the candidates. 1) Remove as much as possible from literature that identifies party affiliation and 2) Keep the answers/issues vague.

Campaigns are (for the worse, I might add) nothing but buzz words and talking points.

When I started the campaign scoreboard I ran into a few problems...one of them was how lacking most of the websites were in telling positions.

This past Monday I reprinted all of the "Issues" pages for each campaign again (since I'm overhauling the scoreboard and the rating system used) and noticed that there were more "buzz phrases", unfounded accusations posed as 'unanswered questions' proving avoidance (in perfect line with that "Loose Change" video), vague statements and platitudes. In other words, the candidates do not truly want their specific positions to be known to the voting public.

The ONLY exception on this underwhelming of facts and positions was Mike Hatch's which took the opposite approach of avoiding his issues being articulated to the public...he put up law review style articles. Verbose, lengthy and loaded with legalese his page does NOT intend for the voting public to be educated about his positions via his site.

You have a great example in "open" or "free" trade. There are a great many others. I have learned that you can not learn much about a candidate from the candidate's campaign. To really know a candidate's position you must play factcheck.org with each campaign.

*sigh*
Tony | Homepage | 08.10.06 - 2:26 pm | #