Have you seen George Bush's new site. Eager to jump on the bandwagon and success of Vermont governor and doctor turned grass roots and very successful presidential candidate Howard Dean, George Bush launched his own site to monitor his 2004 reelection campaign.
The site makes not bones about reaching out the blogging community where Dean has been immensely successful in drawing both attention and funding for his campaign.
[…] The Web site also includes a feature designed specifically for [base “]bloggers.[per thou] Supportive bloggers can place a unique news feed box on their Web site that instantly posts news items onto their weblog the moment GeorgeWBush.com is updated.
The site reaches out for Bush fans and offers sections to Join the Team where constituents can “Be a team leader”, “Donate” and even order “W Stuff” including screen savers, news feeds and t-shirts, coffee mugs and more.
But what's odd about Bush's news feeds is they don't appear to be true RSS. Rather they are JavaScripts that place a horizontal of vertical side bar complete with the Bush/Cheney campaign logo, scroll bars and a list of “news” release links.
If Bush's effort is to tap into grass roots bloggers, I'm not sure many will want to place a huge ad on their website. But then again, come election time lots of home owners in mu community seem to have no qualms about placing an army of signs on stakes on their front lawns or post bumper stickers on expensive imported cars. So I guess someone will place real estate monopolizing Bush/Cheney news feeds on their websites.
