Mark Warner Website and Blog
Former Governor of Virginia, Mark Warner, is likely to be a presidential candidate in the 2008 Democratic primaries. He's a moderate progressive and his experience as a businessman and governor could give him an edge over other candidates.
Warner is the honorary chairman and main subject of Forward Together PAC; it has a website and blog dedicated to creating a Democratic majority and discussing Mark Warner and his positions. It's a good site and well done. The website portion is much more focused than the one I saw for Senator Joe Biden the other day but it could use more content. The blog section looks cleaner and sharper than John Edwards' One America blog which, after Howard Dean's pioneering work, has become the standard for political blogs by potential candidates (John Edwards' main website is superb; Edwards' blog, which is part of his website has been around for a while; it's very active with many participants but it needs some reorganizing, updating and a facelift which in the rapidly changing world of high-profile blogs is simply a given from time to time). If John Edwards has led the way on blogging, Mark Warner's blog may soon be the first to equal or even surpass Edwards' but Warner has a way to go to match the activity of Edwards' participants.
One minor irritating thing I don't like about Forward Together PAC is the pop-up video of Mark Warner. If I want a video, I'll click on one and Forward Together offers a full podcast section making the pop-up video unnecessary for me. Also, you have to click on the video pop-up to make it go away which frankly invites too many potential jokes. I can understand the itch to have lots of bells and whistles to attract visitors but the website and blog provide more than enough quality material without the pop-up. Warner can be impressive when he speaks, but let the viewers find that on their own.
Clearly Mark Warner takes the internet seriously and he will be a keynote speaker at the bloggers' convention called Yearly Kos which will have its convention next week (I'm sure the organizers hope this will be the first of annual conventions). On his site, Mark Warner had this to say: "The blogosphere is the town square of our time—and it's where some of our most engaged citizens are debating the future of our country and our planet. YearlyKos is the place to be if you care about progressive politics this year."
I'll be doing more on other possible presidential contenders on the Democratic side. I'm now more than halfway through the list of potential Democratic candidates for 2008; I finally taped a list up on a bookshelf but I suspect I may need to add another name or two. This is going to be an interesting two-year marathon. The different parties will have their themes for 2008 but to my mind the themes are simple: America's return to its promise, or America's continued plunge into greed and darkness.
Warner is the honorary chairman and main subject of Forward Together PAC; it has a website and blog dedicated to creating a Democratic majority and discussing Mark Warner and his positions. It's a good site and well done. The website portion is much more focused than the one I saw for Senator Joe Biden the other day but it could use more content. The blog section looks cleaner and sharper than John Edwards' One America blog which, after Howard Dean's pioneering work, has become the standard for political blogs by potential candidates (John Edwards' main website is superb; Edwards' blog, which is part of his website has been around for a while; it's very active with many participants but it needs some reorganizing, updating and a facelift which in the rapidly changing world of high-profile blogs is simply a given from time to time). If John Edwards has led the way on blogging, Mark Warner's blog may soon be the first to equal or even surpass Edwards' but Warner has a way to go to match the activity of Edwards' participants.
One minor irritating thing I don't like about Forward Together PAC is the pop-up video of Mark Warner. If I want a video, I'll click on one and Forward Together offers a full podcast section making the pop-up video unnecessary for me. Also, you have to click on the video pop-up to make it go away which frankly invites too many potential jokes. I can understand the itch to have lots of bells and whistles to attract visitors but the website and blog provide more than enough quality material without the pop-up. Warner can be impressive when he speaks, but let the viewers find that on their own.
Clearly Mark Warner takes the internet seriously and he will be a keynote speaker at the bloggers' convention called Yearly Kos which will have its convention next week (I'm sure the organizers hope this will be the first of annual conventions). On his site, Mark Warner had this to say: "The blogosphere is the town square of our time—and it's where some of our most engaged citizens are debating the future of our country and our planet. YearlyKos is the place to be if you care about progressive politics this year."
I'll be doing more on other possible presidential contenders on the Democratic side. I'm now more than halfway through the list of potential Democratic candidates for 2008; I finally taped a list up on a bookshelf but I suspect I may need to add another name or two. This is going to be an interesting two-year marathon. The different parties will have their themes for 2008 but to my mind the themes are simple: America's return to its promise, or America's continued plunge into greed and darkness.
posted by Poechewe at 12:52 PM
2 Comments:
You need to check out the One America Committee blog again that John Edwards has set up. It is the most democratic blog around, with postings being voted on by participants and rising on the site according to votes. There are diaries and a live chat. It is awesome.
Edwards' One America Committee blog is excellent and very active. But, being one of the first of its kind, it's due for a little reorganizing, a facelift and some updating. For regular users, it's probably just fine, but new visitors would probably miss some of the best features if it didn't occur to them to dig around.
I can even tell you where the best place for updating is: the blue bar that has News, Arguments & Analyses, etc. That bar needs to have more content like the bar on Edwards' main website. If, for example, you clicked on the button for diaries, you would never know that Elizabeth and John Edwards each have a diary.
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