In response to a lot of the criticisms stating that while Obama is a great orator, he’s soft/vague on a lot of the major issues, a former colleague at ITP, Matt Burton, has done a thorough job analyzing how the websites of each Democratic candidate fares in addressing the major issues of the campaigns.
Why do I blog this? Because as candidate’s campaigns become more reliant on technology, how they present themselves online is becoming exceptionally important. We are so fortunate to live in a time where the democratization of information forces a certain amount of transparency on these candidates.
In Matt’s words (bold added by me for emphasis):
Why use the candidates’ Web sites as the determining factor? Because it should be the definitive archive of everything substantive they have to say about any issue. And it’s all text, so there’s little room for rhetoric. Details, please.
If you disregard page counts and just skim through each site, you’ll notice something else: much of Clinton’s issue pages are devoted to sections called “Ready to Lead,” which list bullet points about her past experience. On some pages, these lists make up the bulk of the content, while real policy ideas get little attention.
Looking at this, it’s clear who is offering more details on their plans. Whether those plans are good, I’m not evaluating. I’m simply trying to debunk this myth that Obama is not offering details, and is instead simply a great orator. Why is this myth being propagated? Probably because he is a great orator.
UPDATE: Here’s a link to Barack’s response to such criticism from Wisconsin on Feb 16th.
Matthew Burton: “Obama is all talk” is all talk
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