Obama is RESTful
Posted by Corey Ehmke on September 7th, 2008 in Personal | Permanent Link | Share/SaveTags: Humor, politics
I spent some time this morning examining the technology policies of Barack Obama and John McCain. Policies aside, I was immediately struck by the differences between their web sites. So what do the two sites say about the candidates?
Two Different Platforms
The candidates’ platforms could not be more different: JohnMcCain(.com) relies on corporate backing for his web site, which runs on Microsoft Internet Information Server and uses ASP. Barack Obama, in contrast, relies on widespread contributions from the community, in the form of open-source web technologies (PHP and Apache).
Preparedness
Ask McCain’s site for something that it’s not expecting, and it gets very confused. It readily admits that it has no idea what just happened: maybe the page moved, or maybe you mistyped the URL. This could even be the fault of a third-party web site operator. There’s helpful information provided if you happen to be the sysadmin for johnmccain.com, but if you’re John Q. Webuser, you’re pretty much out of luck.
Obama’s site is more willing to admit that mistakes happen, and it’s not laying blame on anyone. Hell, it even injects a bit of humor into the thing. The fact that even his 404 page is polished and provides navigation options shows that despite the claims of right-wing rhetoric, Obama is more prepared in case of the unexpected.
Document Types
Despite his carefully cultivated “maverick” image, McCain is playing it traditional and conservative by using HTML 4.01, the W3C spec from 1999.
However, it’s clear that he’s not following through on his commitment to even this aging standard:
Obama shows himself to be much more progressive, adopting the 21st century XHTML 1.0 transitional standard:
But alas, even Obama has trouble conforming to the standards.
Maybe this is true of all politicians? And not to be an apologist here, but Obama is clearly more valid than McCain, and both are more valid than I am. But shouldn’t we hold public officials to a higher standard?
Transparency
Both candidates claim to support transparency in government, but only one clearly supports transparency (of the PNG variety) on his web site:
Obama is inclusive in his support for PNGs, accommodating even disadvantaged (Internet Explorer) users.
Navigating the Issues
Obama makes it easy to find out what his technology policies are:
John McCain does not provide a clear link to his technology policy:
Instead, you have to ignore the drop-down menu, click on Issues, scroll down near the bottom of the page, and follow a link that’s tucked in between talk about judicial policies and fighting crime. What’s more, take a look at how each candidate identifies his technology page:
Not only is John McCain promoting case-sensitive URLs, he also prefers to hide his page names behind meaningless jargon like `cbcd3a48-4b0e-4864-8be1-d04561c132ea.htm’.
Obama is obviously the more RESTful candidate. His URLs are readable by both machines and humans, easy to remember and type, and clearly communicate both the content and context of a specific resource.
Which site will you support in November?
The choice is clear: a Microsoft-supported, business-as-usual site that clings to last decade’s HTML standards? Or an Open Source-powered site, that not only does a better job adhering to standards but embraces change, transparency, and clear communication?
September 8th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
haha, funny stuff :-) .. Obama ftw!
September 8th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
That is good enough for me; Obama for President!
September 8th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Ugh, what god-awful CMS is McCain’s team using? For what it’s worth, that URL is a “GUID” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globally_Unique_Identifier
September 8th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Well done, sir. Shared this with my web department and am now a hero… glad to have ridden your coat tails.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Brilliant! The choice is clear :)
September 8th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Well done!
Indeed, all signs point to Obama.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Actually in this case I would argue that McCain is a better standards citizen than Obama. Invalid XHTML is worse than invalid HTML, because invalid XHTML shouldn’t really be rendered at all. HTML on the other hand is allowed to contain errors, and browsers can do their best to work around them.
My technical vote would go for the candidate serving up valid HTML 4.01 Strict – which sadly is neither ;)
September 8th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
It takes more than a website to make a president.
Thanks for the critique Corey!
September 8th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Yeah, this should make it to the Daily Show.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Ah, but see here:
http://flickr.com/photos/kentbrew/2786404839/
In the unfortunately-captioned “Log In to MyBO” header, candidate Obama asks for your login and password on a non-https page.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Nice work. Clearly the man who’s a “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution” is not ready to adhere to the standards of the 21st century.
September 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Absolutely awesome. A bit blue, but none-the-less, classic.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
[...] Obama is RESTful [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
[...] Obama is RESTful » Idol Hands: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek (tags: politics development humor mccain obama comparison) [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Cute. Those who enjoy this may also enjoy:
http://rubybama.com
September 9th, 2008 at 2:02 am
[...] Obama is RESTful » Idol Hands: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 4:33 am
OMG, this is totally awesome! Very impressive analysis!
September 9th, 2008 at 6:55 am
[...] Ehmke explains why Barack Obama is RESTful. It was well analyzed. Now if I were a US citizen, I would vote for Obama too. Now just for him [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Umm, HTML 4.01 is a current standard, with HTML 5 on the way, whilst XHTML looks to be a dead-end.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:05 am
I totally agree with Simon Willison, HTML 4.01 Strict FTW!
September 9th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Obama uses Movable Type!
September 9th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Great analysis. Haha. Not that I would ever vote for him as President, but his webpage is truly tops compared to McCain’s. It makes me wonder if McCain thinks the internet is a series of tubes too…. Seriously, with all the money involved with becoming President, I would expect nothing less than cutting edge in their presentations…. Obama wins the webpage awards!
September 9th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Interesting indeed.
Preparedness –
Obama wasted money making a fancy 404 page, McCain lets the user’s browser take care of it.
Verdict: Obama overly concerned with image, wasteful; McCain efficient, leaves it up to the taxpayer.
Document type –
Obama updated to the newest freshest document type, while McCain stuck with a completely acceptable standard.
Verdict: Obama overly concerned with image of freshness; McCain takes the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.
Transparency –
Obama uses unnecessary fancy transparent PNGs in his design, while McCain uses a design that doesn’t need them.
Verdict: Obama overly concerned with image; McCain keeps things simple.
Navigating -
OK, I got nothin, haha. McCain’s URLs are not to hide his policies, just generated by the system.
Verdict: the author has not taken into consideration that John McCain’s web site has been running a lot longer than Obama’s…
The reason why McCain’s web site uses technology from earlier days is precisely because it is from earlier days, me thinks.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am
I’m all for Obama but why oh why did he abbreviate it to MyBO?
September 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
So George – what you are basically saying is that McCain’s website is a reflection of himself:
out of date, old, lacking content, lacking the ability to deal with people, tied to a flawed and historically weak ideology, and resistant to change?
Oh well… I guess we can all agree with that then.
September 9th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
George: That 404 page is the default served by IIS not by the browser. In conclusion, you don’t know what you are talking about.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
[...] Hands does a thorough investigation of the candidates’ nerd cred. Despite his carefully cultivated “maverick” image, McCain is playing it traditional and [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
[...] Despite his carefully cultivated “maverick” image, McCain is playing it traditional and conserva… [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Great comparison, Corey!
@George: Yeah. At least McCain – like most politicians – is a better liar than you ;)
September 9th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Pfff… validation shmalidation…
September 9th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
“John McCain’s web site has been running a lot longer than Obama’s… ”
I thought @George’s claim seemed a little fishy, so I went and did a little sleuthing on the wayback machine. Looks like McCain’s current site has only been up since 2007, so no excuse there.
Something else I noticed while sleuthing was that it looks like McCain actually let this domain name expire after the 2000 election! Talk about an amateur mistake.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:56 am
I prefer your method of politics to who-photoshopped-whose-head-on-what politics!
September 10th, 2008 at 1:44 am
In addition, all other Obama’s website pages (that I’ve browsed) seem to be well-formed, unlike other McCain’s pages.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:23 am
I thought at first that was the default IE 404 page as well (i.e. “Display friendly HTTP errors” setting) digging back to my IIS days, I think you’re right, it’s the IIS default. Call me fancy, but damn, I would not want to be serving that page.
One other note to those who are snickering at the “MyBO” nomenclature. One of the CSS classes on Obama’s is referenced thusly:
class=”mybohiders”
September 10th, 2008 at 3:21 am
[...] Obama is RESTful (Idol Hands) [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 7:01 am
[...] Obama is RESTful » Idol Hands: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek – "I spent some time this morning examining the technology policies of Barack Obama and John McCain. Policies aside, I was immediately struck by the differences between their web sites. So what do the two sites say about the candidates? [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 7:53 am
[...] Obama is RESTful » Idol Hands: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek – The candidates’ platforms could not be more different: JohnMcCain(.com) relies on corporate backing for his web site, which runs on Microsoft Internet Information Server and uses ASP. Barack Obama, in contrast, relies on widespread contributions from the community, in the form of open-source web technologies (PHP and Apache). [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Obama satisfies Section 508 checkpoint O – “A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.” by including a hidden link (directly below the body tag) to skip to the main content and voluntarily provides another to go directly to the navigation while McCain prefers just not bother with this requirement.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I’m almost ashamed to call myself a web developer today because of this article. Transparency? Really? Is that the best you can do? Just because using PNGs is trendy doesn’t make Obama better for using jQuery to fix browser issues. If he was really up to snuff he would use the minifyed version of jQuery rather then the packed version.
What about cross-browser, cross-OS compatibility? You know, reaching the most people with a consistent message?
And yes what about accessibility? There are laws that require government websites to be accessible to everyone. While these aren’t (yet) funded by federal funds it would go a long way to make your website accessible.
I don’t disagree with you that Obama’s site is nicer overall but the choices you picked to compare were amateur.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Funny…..very creative….!!! Thanks!
September 10th, 2008 at 9:43 am
One of the best articles I’ve read in the past few months, hands down. Funny, witty, and smart. Great article :)
September 10th, 2008 at 11:37 am
[...] A comparison of the presidential candidates websites. (via mefi) [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
You know, this completely backs up my theory that democrats are just more sophisticated in their technology and design. I think it stems down to the fact that republicans just aren’t educated that well… and if you don’t have the education you definitely aren’t putting the arts in the forefront of your mind.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Nice post. Check out the comparison of keyword densities in Obama’s and McCain’s speeches.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=90354
September 10th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
[...] Posted by jwoodymeach on September 10, 2008 Stuff like this cracks me up: http://www.idolhands.com/personal/obama-is-restful/ [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
[...] Obama is RESTful » Idol Hands: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek The candidates’ platforms could not be more different: JohnMcCain(.com) relies on corporate backing for his web site, which runs on Microsoft Internet Information Server and uses ASP. Barack Obama, in contrast, relies on widespread contributions from the community, in the form of open-source web technologies (PHP and Apache). (tags: politics web obama) [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
McCain’s got better paid search people, though.
September 11th, 2008 at 3:00 am
[...] feel the political commentary is contrived and unnecessary, but this comparison of the McCain and Obama campaign websites is worth a look; if only to see how not to design a [...]
September 11th, 2008 at 7:30 am
hey,
I made a comparison between Hillary & Obama on Twitter.
Please have a look at:- http://www.watblog.com/2008/02/27/politics-20-hillary-clinton-vs-barack-obama-on-twitter/
September 11th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Well at least Obama is employable… as a web site designer… or at least a manager…
September 11th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Brilliant.
September 12th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Do any of you actually believe that either candidate has the slightest clue as to what technology is used to build their websites?!
September 12th, 2008 at 9:00 am
[...] more on technology: http://www.idolhands.com/personal/obama-is-restful/ Published [...]
September 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am
[...] Obama is RESTful, a brief analysis of how each presidential candidate’s technological ethos is reflected in their campaign websites. When I showed this to my coworker, he said, “I thought I was the only person who thought like this.” [...]
September 12th, 2008 at 11:09 am
[...] present to you,”Obama is Restful,” Corey Ehmke’s humorous and insightful examination of the websites of the two candidates [...]
September 12th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Obama 08!
September 13th, 2008 at 8:03 am
[...] Obama is RESTful » Idol Hands: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek – Pick you candidate based on their website. categorizing: delicious You can make a comment below or link a trackback from your own site. RSS feed for comments on this post. [...]
September 13th, 2008 at 11:37 am
[...] Obama is ANXious… Interesting comments. I find the one above about voluntarily complying the Fed’s Section 508 checklist item “Obama satisfies Section 508 checkpoint O – “A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.” Well I did go check Obama’s home page source code and there are definitely hidden links below the body tag, but if you’re going create a skip navigation jump link for visually impaired users then hiding it with “display:none” is the correct way to do it. Most screen readers will just “skip” right past it. May I suggest that Obama is simply “pretending to voluntarily comply” to that section 508 checkpoint?
September 13th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
> Do any of you actually believe that either candidate has the slightest clue as to what technology is used to build their websites?!
Nah, but then I don’t think the president makes that many decisions about running a country, he appoints a team, and the quality of that team decides how the presidency works. Face it, neither candidate stands out as having appointed web designers who stand out, but then perhaps they know the relative importance of the website in getting the message out, and it just isn’t worth spending more on.
On the other hand both candidates are way ahead of their respective party websites. At least they don’t make the mistake of our local Green party that have “validate xhtml” and “validate css” links on their front page, but clearly don’t use either of them.
September 14th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Well, if I was looking to vote for the country’s Chief Web Page Designer and all around geeky cool dude who looks faaaaabulous on the cover of GQ, I guess I’d vote for Obama.
But since I’m looking for a Commander in Chief, I guess I’ll vote for the boring old steady reliable guy who doesn’t waste time and resources geeking out his Web page. Go McCain.
September 14th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
[...] BarackObama.com vs. JohnMcCain.com [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
“But since I’m looking for a Commander in Chief, I guess I’ll vote for the boring old steady reliable guy who doesn’t waste time and resources geeking out his Web page. Go McCain.”
Communication, quality of work, effectiveness, maximum impact … not important? To me this says something about how each of the candidates make decisions. Do they select the best people for the job, or do they pick what has worked “fine” in the past? Bording… old… steady… reliable… that’s not the change we need!
September 16th, 2008 at 11:52 am
[...] En jämförelse ur tech synvikel av de två presidentkandidaterna och deras respektive hemsida. Kanske en trivial fråga för den gråa massan men för alla datta-hakkers är ju detta faktiskt en viktig fråga. [...]
September 18th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Well, this article was just brilliant. But the comments only further prove my theory that conservative-minded people need to work on their sense of humor…
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:16 am
One could make the argument that McCain’s web designer is promoting his “maverick” image by not adhering to those validation standards just ‘cuz us geeks say he should.
Honestly, if we were voting for web sites, yeah, I’d probably vote for Obama’s, since he’s using Apache/PHP and not Micro$haft IIS. That right there gives me warm fuzzies. But is it actually on a *nix platform? I’m too lazy to find out. Same excuse for my site’s code not validating. ;-)
I dare say that most people commenting here have already made up their minds about this next election, so I don’t think this will sway anyone’s political opinion. But as a Conservative Artfag (TM), I hope my quirky sense of humor doesn’t come off as a lack thereof. Surf Wisely!
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
So, the decisions made by each party’s web designer is a deciding factor in who to vote for? I’m sorry but the fact that McCain is going with an older standard (thus guaranteed to work on all today’s browsers, thus serving a larger market) as opposed to Obama is not a swaying factor. Or that Obama is “inclusive” in the use of transparent PNGs, even though it means using extra code and bloat to serve Internet Explorer users. I understand that IE still dominates the market as far as J. Random Browser goes, but this isn’t Obama’s or McCain’s fault. It’s IE’s, and Microsoft is not running for the presidency.
How about instead of finding trivial things to complain about, we actually take a look at the candidates’ *actual* stance on technology, rather than the decisions their designers make.
Oh wait, that would be logical. Guess we can’t have any of *that* on the internet, now can we?
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:39 am
Idolhands has written an excellent comparison, and I think he’s right in all aspects for technological comparison. But I have to agree with Carl Pham. When the red phone rings in the middle of the night, I don’t want a web designer to handle it.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Check this out too- http://www.on365.co.uk/it-geeks.html
September 25th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Biden on Tech
http://gizmodo.com/5041044/vp-candidate-biden-is-no-friend-to-file-sharing-net-neutrality-protection-or-online-privacy
October 4th, 2008 at 12:32 am
hahahaha. mccain’s website added technology to their “issues” category. that is win.
October 4th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
As if either candidate knows one whit about HTML or web standards du jour. Ridiculous! You’d be better off casting a TAROT spread for insight.
But much more importantly, please, God, no, Washington stay away from “technology.” For most of its history, silicon valley has grown up completely under the radar of the federal gov’t, while, for example, the auto manufacturing industry: its been been tinkered with and intervened in by the feds for decades. Fannie Mae, a GSE, was started in 1934 to mess with mortgages, and kicked off endless fucking around with by congress and and rule by degree by presidential edict in bankin. Look what happened!!!! to both of these arenas of USA endeavor. . PLEASE NO TECHNOLOGY POLICY. PLEASE STAY AWAY, FED.
October 5th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
The old dude had nothing to do with it, but check this out:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/325.html
October 7th, 2008 at 7:57 am
[...] cette excellentissime et drôlatique étude comparative des sites officiels de John McCain et Barack Obama, qui met en exergue les différences des deux [...]
October 7th, 2008 at 8:37 am
haha great… it always comes back to design!
October 7th, 2008 at 8:41 am
[...] On savait qu’Obama était déjà très bon sur le web, mais voilà que les coeurs pourrait définitivement chavirer pour celui-ci avec cette analyse comparée des sites des présidentiables. [...]
October 7th, 2008 at 9:53 am
@George
interesting analysis… real politics aside
Preparedness -
“Obama wasted money making a fancy 404 page, McCain lets the user’s browser take care of it.
Verdict: Obama overly concerned with image, wasteful; McCain efficient, leaves it up to the taxpayer.”
- I have never known 404 pages to be a budget breaker… I would say being thorough can be a positive
Document type -
“Obama updated to the newest freshest document type, while McCain stuck with a completely acceptable standard.
Verdict: Obama overly concerned with image of freshness; McCain takes the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.”
Just because something seems acceptable or has worked in the past… doesn’t mean it is right for the current job.
(4 more years of the last eight years?)
Transparency -
“Obama uses unnecessary fancy transparent PNGs in his design, while McCain uses a design that doesn’t need them.
Verdict: Obama overly concerned with image; McCain keeps things simple.”
- Just because something is done right, and at a high level doesn’t mean it is showboating.
It can mean that there was actually some thought put into it.
Navigating -
“OK, I got nothin, haha. McCain’s URLs are not to hide his policies, just generated by the system.
Verdict: the author has not taken into consideration that John McCain’s web site has been running a lot longer than Obama’s…
The reason why McCain’s web site uses technology from earlier days is precisely because it is from earlier days, me thinks.”
- Again just because something has bee around for a long time doesn’t necessarily mean that it works good (especially in technology)
I am not entirely stoked on either candidate… but i will say that it doesn’t help you break the stereotypes of your party when your website confirms each one of them. And I am a designer, and have never been a politician (I think we are all better off that way) so it easy to male comments from my comfy desk, this is a great article, and fun to discuss.
~ Aaron I
October 7th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Obama es restful…
Una comparativa entre los sitios de los candidatos a la presidencia de los EEUU nos acerca a la conclusion de que obama es RESTful….
October 7th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
[...] instead of obsessive compulsive. Either way, they come in especially handy when looking for a reason to praise a site, or when wanting to scrutinize an applicant’s resume [...]
October 8th, 2008 at 1:28 am
ha ha ha…
McCain needs update to “McCain 2.0″
October 8th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
[...] A través del blog despuesdegoogle.com, me entero de una curiosa comparación que han realizado en idol hands, acerca de las páginas oficiales de los candidatos a la presidencia de E.U.A., Barak Obama y John [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
[...] Je vous laisse lire en complément de ce billet, un article très intéressant et très complet – en anglais – sur ce sujet. Ça se passe ici. [...]
October 10th, 2008 at 4:07 am
[...] petit tableau récapitulatif et le lien sur la comparaison compète (en anglais [...]
October 10th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
[...] Here is a great article that compares Obama and McCain’s web presence. I spent some time this morning examining the technology policies of Barack Obama and John McCain. Policies aside, I was immediately struck by the differences between their web sites. So what do the two sites say about the candidates? [...]
October 11th, 2008 at 1:39 am
[...] can pretty much see the difference between the right and the left’s Internet usage in this post about Obama and McCain’s [...]
October 13th, 2008 at 11:54 am
[...] http://www.idolhands.com/personal/obama-is-restful/ : Obama vs McCain pour les [...]
October 15th, 2008 at 3:38 am
Hahaha, Obama president, funny comparison !
October 15th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
[...] Obama is RESTful » Idol Hands: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek [...]
October 15th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Well played, indeed. This was a very creative analysis. You know, despite the humor around it there actually may be some substance to it.
October 24th, 2008 at 2:02 am
[...] Pour finir, un petit point sur la campagne éléctorale américaine en ligne, avec cet article qui compare les sites respectifs des deux candidats. [...]
October 31st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
[...] Comparaison des campagnes Web de Barack Obama et John McCain. Obama est le grand vainqueur ! [...]
November 12th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
[...] À l’heure actuelle, vous ne gagnez pas une campagne électorale sur internet (quoique ?), mais vous pouvez la perdre. L’équipe du nouveau président des États-Unis l’a très bien compris. Pour en savoir plus, je vous invite à consulter la comparaison des sites internet des 2 candidats à la maison blanche. [...]
January 1st, 2009 at 4:41 pm
[...] is still on the low side, but was definitely helped by my satirical analysis of the Obama and McCain web sites– to the tune of 45,000 unique page [...]