Which candidate has the best web platform? To find out, we viewed source. It’s Track Changes, the newsletter (and podcast) of Postlight for March 8, 2016— subscribe here.
“The last couple election cycles, your typical Republican website looked like it was ten years older than it was, and was prepared by dogs.” –Paul
But things have changed. This week we go deep inside the source code of the presidential candidates’ websites and assess their (web) platforms. Which candidates have the best technology platforms—and which are phoning it in? Spoiler: If you want to be the big winner in the primaries, don’t use WordPress. No insult to WordPress. Just the facts.
You can listen on:
- iTunes
- Soundcloud (direct link)
- Stitcher
- Directly from the web
- And here’s the RSS feed.
The Candidates by Platform
The Platforms
The platforms basically break down to:
- WordPress;
- Or custom (which might include WordPress!)
It’s worth explaining this: WordPress is everywhere. When you look at source code of a web site you can see that some sites are really straight out-of-the-box WordPress, and you can see that in the source code—but they can also be heavily modified and do lots of stuff on top of WordPress, and you’d hardly know there’s WordPress involved.
We can be pretty sure that some people are using WordPress, but you can never be sure that someone isn’t. The web is tricky.
Hillary Clinton
Site: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/
Validation Errors: 7
Platform: Appears to be native
Fundraising: Appears to be native
Notes: Very modern site, big platform. Event search and caching. Secret comments:
Good platform? Two thumbs up.
Notes: “It’s thoughtful. They didn’t overreach, it seems, and it’s fast.”–Rich “I’ll be honest, it made me more comfortable with Hillary Clinton, to look at her source code.”–Paul
Bernie Sanders
Site: https://berniesanders.com/
Validation Errors: 13
Platform: WordPress
Fundraising: ActBlue
Notes: Big mess in there, on a typical WordPress build-out. Nice phone-bank feature.
Good platform? Two thumbs down.
Takeaway: “You know what Bernie should have done? He should have hired a high priced, high powered, capitalist web agency, they would have probably killed it for him.” –Rich
Marco Rubio
Site: https://marcorubio.com/
Validation Errors: 164 (oof)
Platform: WordPress
Fundraising: Stripe
Good platform? Paul & Rich: Thumbs down.
Takeaway: “Just a disaster. They just, they didn’t care. I bet Rubio’s campaign started on SquareSpace.” –Paul
Donald Trump
Site: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/
Validation Errors: 17
Platform: Appears to be custom.
Fundraising: Victory Passport (Targeted Victory)
Notes: Dependencies on jQuery and CloudFlare. Lot of iFrames, which means he’s hiding a lot of his issues.
Good platform? Two thumbs up (for the technology).
Takeaway: “He uses the same technology used in drones to collect money from supporters.” –Rich
Ted Cruz
Site: https://www.tedcruz.org/about/
Validation Errors: 19
Platform: WordPress
Fundraising: Victory Passport (Targeted Victory)
Notes: Didn’t have the foresight to grab tedcruz.com, apparently:
His meta tags, tho.
<meta property=”og:description” content=”Ted Cruz – proven, passionate, effective fighter for limited government, economic growth, and the Constitution. Throughout his entire life, Ted Cruz has proven to be a passionate and effective fighter for limited government, economic growth, and the Constitution. Ted’s calling to public service has been inspired by his first-hand observation of the pursuit of freedom and opportunity in America. Ted’s …”/>Good platform? Rich: Thumbs up. Paul: Sideways thumb.
Takeaway: “This passes muster, I would say.” -Rich. Also, Ted Cruz may be the Zodiac Killer.
John Kasich
Site: https://johnkasich.com/
Validation Errors: 9
Platform: WordPress
Fundraising: Spark Pay (from Capital One) (siggggggh)
Notes: Pingback + special CSS for versions of IE going back to version 8. This site is built for 2006.
Good platform? Two thumbs down.
Takeaway: “I’m just assuming the average Kasich fan is using a Windows XP machine…they’re at death’s door, both them and their computers.” –Paul
Ben Carson
Site: https://www.bencarson.com/
Validation Errors: 19
Platform: Wordpress
Fundraising: Victory Passport (Targeted Victory)
Good platform? Two thumbs down.
Takeaway: “More WordPress. If you want to lose an election…” –Paul “This is the most important pattern we’ve found. All of the losers are on WordPress.”—Rich
Chris Christie
Site: https://www.chrischristie.com/
Validation Errors: 19
Platform: Wordpress
Fundraising: Victory Passport (Targeted Victory)
Notes: Ulgh god make it stop.
Good platform? Two thumbs down.
Takeaway: “Again, nothing to do with his political biases or anything, this is a garbage site and it gets a thumbs down.” -Paul
People who helped with the podcast
Elizabeth Minkel prepared the summary of the podcast. Coordination, research, management: Elizabeth Minkel. Production and editing: Tom Meyers. Podcast logo and design: Matt Quintanilla of Postlight. Studio: Argot Studios.
March 15 @ Postlight: Come see the man who killed Clippy
Dean Hachamovitch is one of the most influential human beings who ever served time in the software industry. He served as Corporate Vice President of Internet Explorer at Microsoft — and oversaw the launch of IE9. Under Dean’s management, Microsoft helped millions of people experience a secure, private, responsive, cross-platform, and standards-based Web.
That responsibility was earned: Before IE, starting in 1990, Dean led the development of several versions of Word and Office on both Windows and Mac. AutoCorrect? Dean. Automated formatting? Dean. Clippy? NOT Dean. His team was the one that killed Clippy in 2007. RIP.
Dean is a modest person and does not enjoy being promoted, but the truth is he’s had as much of an impact on culture and software as nearly anyone alive. He has graciously agreed to speak about his work at Microsoft, building software at a huge, global scale before anyone knew what that meant — and, if we are very lucky, he might do his Ballmer impersonation.
At Postlight’s offices in NYC.
Today’s GIF Battles
- Lulzy (NSFW, maybe); and
- Suuuuper-random.
Today’s Links
- Today’s North Korean slogan: “Finish the building of the Paektusan Hero Youth Power Station No. 3 and the Wonsan Army-People Power Station at a time fixed by the Party without fail!”
- Today’s variety of religious experience: Dragon Gate Taoism.
- Today’s old-school Unix fortune: He’s a great eater: but that’s his only skill.
- Today’s JavaScript library: fancyInput — Makes typing in input fields fun with CSS3 effects.
- Today’s public data set: Facebook Social Networks from LAW (since 2007).
- Today’s Creative Commons media link: AllTheFreeStock — curated list of free stock images, graphics and videos.
- Today’s freely available programming book: The Bastards Book of Ruby.
- Today’s React component: Marty.
Past Podcasts
- Track Changes #0003 (Mon, Mar 07)
- Track Changes #0002 (Tue, Mar 01)
- Track Changes #0001 (Wed, Feb 24)
Past Newsletters
- Global App Madness (Mon, Mar 07)
- Executive Summary (Fri, Mar 04)
- Caricatures (Thu, Mar 03)
- Fun Photoshop File Format Facts (Wed, Mar 02)
- Track Changes: Apple vs. the FBI and Paul vs. Rich (Tue, Mar 01)
About Postlight
POSTLIGHT is a growing web agency in New York City. We build great things for the web and mobile. Check us out. Thanks!
