Democracy Has Prevailed.

February 18, 2008

Am I Missing Something?

On July 14th (Bastille Day, for all you Francophiles out there) last year the P-G reported:
Former Congresswoman Melissa Hart says she is planning a comeback bid to regain the seat she lost a year ago to Democrat Jason Altmire.
On February 11 (National Inventor's Day for all you Thomas Edison fans out there) of this year KDKA reported on Melissa Hart's opening salvo in her comback bid, a negative ad:

When Congressman Jason Altmire beat Congresswoman Melissa Hart in 2006 by just 8,500 votes, it was pretty likely that Hart would try a comeback.

That's exactly what she's doing - only this time she won't wait until she gets attacked by Altmire.

Hart has launched her first television ad on cable television and the Internet and it goes right after Altmire's record.

And according to Opensecrets.org, as of the end of 2007, Melissa Hart has raised nearly a third of a million dollars.

So can someone please tell me why her campaign website hasn't been updated from before November, 2006?

I picked this up from the website at 10:35pm on 2/18/08:

You'd think website maintenance would be an important thing for a campaign.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dave -

Noticed the same thing. After her nasty return to the fray, I went to her site, only to find, well, nothing....nothing but a ghost of her former self!

I know that websites haven't yet proven to generate votes, particularly in essentially below-the-line Congressional races, but this is ridiculous. Most candidate websites are pretty boilerplate, which means someone with half a brain could fix this up in less than the time it takes Missy to launch another nasty salva at Altmire.

Or is that the point after all? Now that SHE doesn't have a record to run on, is she trying to run a stealth campaign? Hmmmm? Of course, her consultants haven't updated their own site in years, so maybe they don't believe anyone is paying attention.

Pilt

EdHeath said...

Salv*o*.

This strategy worked for Luke Ravenstahl. He stopped updating his website when Bill Peduto pulled out of the race (well before the primary), and, as I remember, did not start updating it again until sometime in October.

But if you read "The Political Brain" (Drew Westen), you will hear how most voters make their choices based on party affiliation and unconscious reactions. Most candidates are not the one dimensional cardboard cutouts we like to pretend they are (actually, to be accurate that should be two dimensional). Bono is on record talking about the parts of Rick Santorum's personality and record he likes. And there are people who decry Barack Obama's naked ambition. Yet one is a saint and one a sinner. Which is which depends on your own party affiliation and history.