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Mayoral Site Check - Episode 2
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3076 Reads
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Call it obsessive, but today, I'm turning this into a weekly feature that will run until there's one candidate left standing in the mayor's race in November next March. Last week, I looked at all the candidates' websites and found them mostly lacking.
If you believe common wisdom that modern political campaigns are nothing more than a battle for media supremacy that is ultimately won by the candidate with the most ad dollars, then the Internet is - for better or worse - the great leveler. It doesn't matter how much money you spend on your site: What matters is how much information is there, how current it is, how well it addresses the issues that concern Angelenos, and how hard you work to connect with the voters. It's your raw, unfiltered voice - and the one medium on which voters can judge you best.
Richard Alarcon, Jim Hahn, Bob Hertzberg, Walter Moore, Bernard Parks and Antonio Villaraigosa - you shall know them by their websites - or lack thereof.
Here's how they look this week:
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Alarcon - Missing in action.
Hahn - very, very proud, still, of his activities fighting Valley Secession three years ago. Considering his performance thus far in the mayor's office, suggesting even one more time that he wake up would be a waste of breath. The Hahn Machine has not kicked into gear. In fact, it appears to be sitting on the shop floor in pieces in a puddle of stagnating motor oil.
Hertzberg - Very well fleshed out, and fully functional. He's touting a new feature called Creative Policy Workshops, which looks to be a consensus-building exercise designed to attract good ideas to the campaign and, ultimately, the mayor's office. Hertzberg says, in part: Initially we have set up twelve public policy areas we invite you to sign up to participate in depending on your interest and expertise.
I expect this number to grow, but we have to start somewhere.
1. Budget/Municipal Finance
2. Transportation/Traffic
3. Public Safety/Crime Prevention
4. Community Revitalization (see "extreme makeover" in my opening statement"
5. Environmental Protection
6. Housing
7. Job Creation/Trade/Economic Development/Runaway Production
8. Neighborhood Empowerment
9. Public Works/Infrastructure
10. Arts, Culture & Entertainment
11. Campaign & Ethics Reform
12. Other!
If you are interested in one of the above or want to suggest creating others, please click here to sign up. You will be notified of our online meetings as well as the public "mini-townhalls" we will be holding throughout Los Angeles to address these topics. I'll warn you in advance, these are working committees and I will be personally involved making sure that we develop a real plan with real solutions in each and every area. I'm not looking for sound-bites.
My philosophy is simple. I believe if you bring the best and brightest together to brainstorm ideas and share their everyday problems, we can come up with a blueprint to change Los Angeles in a dramatic way. Make no mistake, I have many ideas of my own and I pointed to a few specific initiatives in my opening statement that I would launch in my first 100 days in office. But, I can't do it alone.
Walter Moore - His last press release slams Parks with a brief, open question that he doesn't bother answering:What has Parks done to make this city better in the past three years? Can you name even one thing? Can he? Then why in the world should we promote him to mayor?
Moore also inveighs against Hahn's LAX plan, calling it a .1-billion Maginot Line and illegal aliens. The latter of these two stances is sure to win him staunch allies in some parts of Los Angeles and sworn enemies in others.
Bernard Parks - Still asleep at the switch. His "Newletter" (I don't know if this is a typo or some clever brand) boasts a reprint of articles from the L.A. Business Journal (note to the Parks Webmaster - if you're going to use the dreaded <blink> tag, make sure you close it) and a dead link to Parks' alternative LAX plan. Too bad. I was hoping to get a chance to compare it to Hahn's plan. The Parks site still boasts the same empty calendar and exhaustive LAPD bio and blinking "Under construction" label on pages such as the photo gallery and committee to elect Bernard Parks page. Get that man some coffee.
Oh, and, Antonio WHO? Since he's not even officially running yet, you can't fault him for it. But his political advisors had better jump on the Villaraigosa domain name minefield before some clever Hahn or Hertzberg operative does. Still available for registration:
Past Mayoral Site Check:
MayorVillaraigosa.com for Sale - CHEAP
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 09:06 AM
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