What a great site!
Right tone, right look, right goal: to create a truly interactive digital space. The opening film with its contrast of the overbearing Democratic vision of government and Republican decentralization and trust in people likewise hits the right themes in the right tone. The whole thing is a triumph of Web engineering.
Unfortunately, we’re still stuck with our core Republican policy/message problem: Finding the right thing to say from this jazzy new platform.
22 responses so far
1 ottovbvs // Oct 14, 2009 at 10:31 am
Yours is the first positive review of the site I’ver read anywhere David. As far as I can tell it’s been panned both on technical counts and content. I suppose you can fix the technical stuff but the message is a bit more of a problem.
2 LFC // Oct 14, 2009 at 11:08 am
David, really. Stick to what you know. The web site has been such a disaster that Michael Steele had to call it a “beta”. Michael Steele’s blog was called “What’s Up!” … really. They got the name wrong of one of the prominent black Republicans (from the 1800s) they profiled. They couldn’t even keep it up yesterday.
On a more substantial note, the site is virtually detail free. There isn’t a single detailed position anyplace on it. Compare that to Obama’s campaign web site.
This site is nothing but fluff.
3 LFC // Oct 14, 2009 at 11:14 am
Correction: Steele’s blog was called “What Up”, not “What’s Up”. And I thought it couldn’t be worse.
4 wrs10 // Oct 14, 2009 at 12:13 pm
LOL!
(Maybe they will have sorted it out in a few weeks. Stranger things have happened!)
5 sinz54 // Oct 14, 2009 at 12:31 pm
lfc & ottovbs: This was the rollout of a website, not the rollout of a party platform.
The GOP’s party platform is still the one they had in 2008. It will take much time and effort to write a new one. That’s entirely separate from whether the website works or not.
For myself, I don’t care much for the garish mostly-red color scheme. If the subliminal message is “We’re from the Red States,” that’s a big mistake for a party that doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a regional party. Besides, it looks too much like RedState.com’s mostly-red color scheme.
And it violates a major guideline of home page design: Don’t create such a long home page that you have to scroll through several screens to get to important material. That’s what frames are for.
6 What Up? Not Much, And You? « Around The Sphere // Oct 14, 2009 at 12:51 pm
[...] David Frum at New Majority [...]
7 EscapeVelocity // Oct 14, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Why dont you go over to GLAD, NOW, and the NAACP, and just parrot what they are saying?
8 EscapeVelocity // Oct 14, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I agree with sinz, the I refuse to adopt the Leftwing framing which purposely chose not to paint the Leftist States the color red, which suits them as the color of Communism and Socialism.
9 EscapeVelocity // Oct 14, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Nothing says GOP, like ghetto verbalizations of improper grammar!
Good Job, Michael Steele!
10 spikeytx86 // Oct 14, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I was an enthusiastic supporter of steele’s in the beginning. But this guy has got to go. He has been nothing but a disaster since day 1. Can anyone even name anything he has accomplished?
11 spikeytx86 // Oct 14, 2009 at 2:32 pm
The site does have a really nice feel and look to it, but there is zero substance their. Nothing but half paragraph generalizations on what we stand for on certain issues.
We certainly need a more tech savvy approach, but more importantly we need a Governing Agenda more then anything else.
No one is going to go into the voting booth thinking “Man they were disasters last time around, and now I have no idea what they stand for, but man that new GOP.com sure looks good. Straight Republican Ballot for me!”
12 ottovbvs // Oct 14, 2009 at 3:05 pm
…….On the subject of Steele here’s a link to an film clip item about him on the dreaded Kos……click on it…..trust me it is hilarious…..
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/14/793177/-Michael-Steele:-Im-the-cow-on-the-tracks
13 sinz54 // Oct 14, 2009 at 4:30 pm
spikeytx86:
Sure.
But you’re not going to get that less than one year after the GOP’s 2008 election loss, in the absence of a real visionary like Gingrich.
One reason the GOP lost in 2008 was that the GOP coalition fragmented over issues like the economic collapse. On economic stimulus, on immigration, on health care, even on Afghanistan, there are sincere disagreements among Republicans as to what to do. It will take time to work all that out. Right now, the GOP is only capable of standing in opposition to Obama’s agenda.
14 spikeytx86 // Oct 14, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Sinz54!
I agree. But we should at least be working on developing one. As well we should be able to articulate our core principles of low taxes, limited Government, and a strong national defense a lot better then a few shallow words.
15 Bebe99 // Oct 14, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Congratulations on getting the site going. Since this seems to be a new venture for the Republicans it ought to be given some time to work the bugs out. If you truly offer an alternative to the insanity-masquerading-as-GOP over at Fox, then this site is bound to improve. I hope to see some reasonable discussion going on here, as it is sorely needed.
16 LFC // Oct 14, 2009 at 6:03 pm
sinz54 said… On economic stimulus, on immigration, on health care, even on Afghanistan, there are sincere disagreements among Republicans as to what to do. It will take time to work all that out. Right now, the GOP is only capable of standing in opposition to Obama’s agenda.
The problem is not that there are differing opinions to be worked out. The problem is that anybody who differs in opinion from the wingiest of wingnuts is immediately attacked. Lindsey Graham just took an a** whoopin’ for trying to be even somewhat reasonable.
As long as anybody taking a 1/2 step towards the center can expect to be attacked, the GOP will stay mired in the swamp of the Tea Party, talk radio, and Fox News crazies.
17 agentprovocateur // Oct 14, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Can anyone even name anything he has accomplished?
Well, he certainly has brought a little color to the GOP. Or maybe just a little colorfulness.
18 Reason60 // Oct 14, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I felt more sadness than anything, looking at the “Heroes” section. I can see why Steele considers them to be heroes, and they are.
But few of the people listed would be admitted to a Tea Party without being shouted down as “chickified” RINOs.
19 sinz54 // Oct 15, 2009 at 10:12 am
reason60:
I found it incredible that Theodore Roosevelt was not represented.
A Republican on Mount Rushmore–and they left him out.
20 sinz54 // Oct 15, 2009 at 10:16 am
lfc:
I see evidence that the GOP base is willing to bend on social issues where Blue and Purple states are concerned. They know that a Phyllis Schlafly type can’t win in Massachusetts or Connecticut or Oregon. And they do want to win. That’s what’s happening on RedState.com, for example.
The GOP awaits a “50 state strategy” in which they make it clear that they will run candidates in Blue States who lean Right but whose cultural leanings fit with the locale they’re running in.
21 MSheridan // Oct 15, 2009 at 11:37 am
Well, I guess I’m glad you like it, David, but I saw a few issues.
First, the Republican Heroes section linked off the front page needs work. Ronald Reagan is the most recent figure shown and most of the people named are from the late 19th or early 20th centuries. It’s almost as if the site were attempting to show a party in decline.
Second, the Republican Accomplishments section has a similar problem. Below are the accomplishments listed since 1957 (the year Republicans Passed the 1957 Civil Rights Act and Republicans Ended Racial Segregation in Little Rock):
1972 Nixon Goes to China [diplomatic act by most liberal Republican President in the last 1/2 century]
1981 Reagan Tax Cuts
1987 Tear Down This Wall [speech]
1994 Contract with America [of rather less than fond memory]
1996 Welfare Reform
2001 Operation Enduring Freedom [subjugation of Taliban in Afghanistan, still ongoing]
2001 Republican Tax Cuts [cited as "boosting employment and economic growth for years"]
2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom [invasion of Iraq, listed reason "to hold Hussein accountable"]
2004 Vouchers for DC Schoolchildren [expired]
Without undue editorializing, I think that as a list of accomplishments covering the 50+ years since 1957, the foregoing achievements are less than inspiring as a résumé to convince unaffiliated voters which party to choose.
22 ottovbvs // Oct 15, 2009 at 4:24 pm
sinz54 // Oct 15, 2009 at 10:12 am
“I found it incredible that Theodore Roosevelt was not represented.
A Republican on Mount Rushmore–and they left him out.”
……The problem is he was to all intents and purposes a Democrat……that’s why Republicans are ambivalent about him as they are about Eisenhower…….they were RINO’S.
……And Boy did David get this wrong…….the RNC have spent the last two days scrambling to re jig this mess…….what ups gone……along with the incredible wandering Steele……and other changes
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