The Biggest Decision You'll Make this Year - Mike Huckabee

Now that we've taken a look at all of the presidential hopefuls, I'd be remiss to leave out one of the most followed Vice Presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee.  I joke, which seems fitting for Huckabee's campaign.

• Hillary Clinton (Part 1)
• John McCain (Part 2)
• Barack Obama (Part 3)

Design

Logo – Huckabee doesn't really have a consistent logo, but I'll review what is present in the header.  There appears to be falling stars which makes me think that I can make a wish.  Huckabee also, like Senator Clinton, reminds us that he's running for president by simply putting "President" underneath his name.  I think it's a bit presumptuous that he left off the "for" before "President."

Color palette – maroon, blue and yellow. Like McCain, this seems like an odd color combination.  I think the maroon is an homage to his beloved Razorbacks.

Personal pic – Unlike any of the other candidates, Huckabee seems a bit humble to not show a personal pic in a fixed position on the site.  It's true that other pictures take up the hero shot on the homepage, but the one up today is not Huckabee's best angle.

Navigation –  Here's another horizontal navigation, but there's no secondary links from the top bar.  While some might see this as a simplistic design, it strikes me as quite a surprise in that it seems like when running for the President of the United States there would be plenty of things to link to.   

Calls to action – There seem to be quite a few different calls to action on the homepage from Read More!, Build our Base, Become a Ranger and Contribute.  None of these particularly stand out too much.

Order of importance – based on navigation

1. About Mike
2. Newsroom
3. Issues
4. Blog
5. Get Involved
6. Contribute

Order of importance – based on layout

1. Texas for Huckabee
2. Help Mike Today!
3. Ways You Can Help Huckabee!
4. Recent Blog Posts

What’s missing - While the site is a clean design, it still leaves much to be desired.  Based on how the sections of the site are labeled it seems that Huckabee definitely needs help.  The 3 outlined steps are to 1. Join the team, 2. Build their base or Become a Ranger! (not as awesome as it sounds) and 3. Contribute.   The third option is most important as it is highlighted with a yellow font color.  Overall, the design reminds me of my days when I first started using Dreamweaver and Photoshop. While both programs offer a ton of ways to make things look cool, when you try them all out on the same site it looks like crap.  My guess is that Huckabee has a precocious grandson.

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Content

About Mike - This section of the site has a good amount of info on Huckabee, unfortunately the video that is intended to inspire reminds me more of a home movie.  On the flip-side, one of the most impressive things I've learned about Huckabee is that when he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in 2003 he lost 110 pounds. He then went on to complete four marathons over the next two years.  The other interesting piece is that Huckabee plays the bass guitar in a "rock-n-roll" band, Capitol Offense.  Here's the thing, with the exception of Sting, how many bass players are the leader in their bands?  Huckabee seems more like a wingman than a commander in chief.  Huckabee's the guy that forwards you the Chuck Norris jokes, he's fun to hang out with but you're not following him into battle.

Developer Log - One of the most bizarre parts of the site resides in the subnavigation in the About Mike section is this Developer Log.  Here, a voter can see important things like on 12/18 at 6:19 PM they "Added Filter to Ranger Endorsements public display" and on 12/11 at 5:30 PM "Rangers can add their own links to their dashboard, making the dashboard a potential home page for supporters."  This is hilarious to me.  Why on earth would you put this mundane information up on the site?  Like I said, it feels very amateur, like the developer wants everyone to know the progress he's made on the site.

Become a Ranger - one of the biggest disappointments to the site is that when I tried to "Become a Ranger" I was met with a Chuck Norris-like server error scissor-kick to the throat.

Newsroom - The problem I have with this section is that the Press Releases and Recent Articles aren't titled very distinctively and they don't lead me to want to click on them at all.  The video archive, which shows a screenshot of the video is a let down in that I can't just view the video on this page.  I would have to click on the link of the video and which then takes me to YouTube.  They've listed the Author, Keywords, and Date, but the problem is that all of the entries are from the same person with the same keyword.

Issues - Huckabee has chosen to rename the issues with his own personal spin, which makes quick scanning of the issues very difficult.

Blog - Here I see another missed opportunity, in that the Blog only highlights campaign events and videos instead of providing content and engaging people in a conversation.  This content is just recycled from what could be displayed on a videos page and an upcoming events page.

What’s missing -  There simply isn't much to the site as the content is severely lacking compared the other three candidate's sites.  With that in mind, I will say that 29 Things You Didn't Know About Huckabee is my favorite part of the site.

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Use of technology

The site was built on Coldfusion, which was a hot development framework back in 2001, but is seen as outdated by many in today's advertising space. Now, on to the social networks.

MySpace - 38,854 friends, 12,269 comments

• Barack Obama - 295,556 friends, 46,073 comments
  
• Hillary Clinton - 182,641 friends, 18,691 comments
• John McCain - 44,931 friends, 5,814 comments. 

Facebook - 56,839 supporters, 8,898 wall posts

• Barack Obama - 627,718 supporters, 83,325 wall posts
• Hillary Clinton - 110,460 supporters, 37,456 wall posts
• John McCain - 59,342 supporters, 5,804 wall posts

Eons - N/A

• Hillary Clinton - 297 friends, 3 badges
• Barack Obama - 216 friends, 1 badge 
• John McCain - 3 friends, 0 badges

YouTube - 4,113 subscribers, 461,353 channel views,184 videos uploaded

• Barack Obama - 30,595 subscribers, 12,180,341 channel views, 705 videos uploaded 
• Hillary Clinton - 9,829 subscribers, 1,304,419 channel views, 252 videos uploaded
• John McCain - 2,613 subscribers, 589,518 channel views, 166 videos uploaded
  

What’s missing - The social networking piece of Huckabee's campaign caught me off guard because I thought that most people, like me, would want to befriend the former Governor even if they didn't want to back his presidential run.  I mean, c'mon, he knows Chuck Norris! This sponsorship by Chuck Norris was the best and worst thing Huckabee could've done for his bid.  It was the best because it garnered 1.8 million views on YouTube alone, but it's possibly the worst because it's hard to take the guy seriously.

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Overall

Well, Mike, I hate to do this buddy, but your site just stinks.  With the other candidates it literally took me days to review all of their content and put it into bit sized nuggets for our readers while you provided the nuggets as your content.  It's a shame because you seem like a really nice guy, you just should have spent some money on an interactive strategy. 

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Thanks so much for your attention in these marathon posts! My hope is that you found some useful information that might help you in your decision for the next president of the free world.   

- John Herrington

Comments

[Cam Beck]

In the photo, the Elect Mike Huckabee sign is upside-down. Very poor attention to detail - and what a blown opportunity to leverage the Chuck Norris endorsement, which was the greatest thing he had going for him.

I guess he's trying to strike a balance between popularity and coming across as something other than a cartoon character in a 30-minute episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.

[Dean Rader]

I like this reading of the Huckabee package. The detail on the logo and website and colors is really great! And I love the seal ratings. I actually do something similar on my post today---comparing the logos of Obama and Clinton.
http://weeklyrader.blogspot.com

[John Herrington]

@Cam - consider this, maybe Chuck Norris didn't want to be associated with someone that 's not going to win.

@Dean - Thanks for your kind words. I look forward to checking out your post!

[Blake]

John,

Great work, yet again. I like how you open with the Vice Presidential quip. I think he may be headed for the Veep job for McCain, although that'd be an odd pairing. It is interesting to see, after all four posts, how closely the candidates websites mirror their actual persona. Thanks for taking the time to put all of these together.

Blake

[John Herrington]

@Blake Thanks for reading all four. :)

[Cam Beck]

John - I've been reading Chuck Norris' articles over at WorldNetDaily.com, where he regularly pitches for Huckabee. According to him (and his actions back it up), he's worried about following his own conscience, not about associating himself with someone who he thinks is going to win.

I can't say my conscience leads me to the same place as Norris, but I have nothing but respect for the man for putting his reputation on the line for what he believes in.