Why can't Kansas politicians make a web page?

I realize that my own page is not the most beautiful in the world, but I'm not trying to sell anything here, much less convince any of you to vote for me. But seriously, all our politicians are stuck in 1999 with their web presence. Let's start with the Democrats, though. Since I'm going to be on their side for the rest of the existence of this blog, we'll thrash them first.

Nancy Boyda for Congress - Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that when you Google this page, it misspells "incumbency" on the results, the page itself is quite bare. Also, it's wishing me happy holidays when April is less than a week away.

Jim Slattery for Senate - On a Google search for "Jim Slattery," you'll find this on page thirteen of the results. There's also nothing there yet other than a very short message, an offer to get on an email list, and a contribute button. But, seriously, page thirteen? That's 126 sites that rank better than Slattery's for his own senate page. Even if you amend the search to add the word senate, the link doesn't appear until page 3 of the results.

Lee Jones is the gold standard for Kansas democrats. Apart from the weird double checkmark next to health care (like there's an unnamed competing product that provides a health care plan but nothing else Jones does), he's got a grasp on what a modern campaign needs in a web site. The Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube links at the bottom, great information on what Mr. Jones is campaigning for. The only complaint I have is the slideshow of family photos before there's any kind of reason why I should vote for him. I'm kind of weirded out by that, actually.

On to the Republicans!

Jim Ryun for Congress - Ryun's page reminds me of one I designed for a band in 2000. Except my page was far more attractive. Ryun manages to combine the worst elements of every era of web design (except, mercifully, for the embedded midi files of the mid-'90s and the pointless Flash of today) to give us a page that is both useless and insulting. Given that Mr. Ryun's wife found it difficult to believe that I could be both a Christian and a Democrat, this is hard to say, but I'm actually less likely to vote for him after seeing that page.

Lynn Jenkins for Congress - This is one of the weirder things they do nowadays: a simple splashscreen that gives you the option to enter your e-mail address and zip code before you get to the main page. No one knows why they do this, but it's frequent (see the sites for all three major Presidential candidates). Once you get past this, you almost wish you hadn't. The main page has a helpful poll asking the balanced question "Why is Lynn Jenkins the most qualified candidate?" I mean, if you're going to have a poll, have it be something useful. What do you think is the best thing about me? Apart from that, it's much like Lee Jones's. It's telling that the more dark horse candidates in these two races are the only ones with modern web pages.

Pat Roberts does not seem to have a web page other than his senate.gov page. So good job on that.

Just because we're a rural state out here doesn't mean that we're a bunch of luddites. We can have nice things on the internets, I promise you.