Small Business News | September 1998 | Page 5

Small Business Hawaii | Volume 23 Number 9 | September 1998

THE COMPUTER CORNER

POLITICAL WEB SITES IN HAWAII*
By Melvin Ah Ching, Special to Small Business News

The political season is in full swing as candidates vying for elective office use all methods available to get their message out. In the last 2 years electioneering has made inroads into cyberspace where candidates have set up web page presences on the internet. Most of the political candidate webpages are extensions of their brochures, often featuring extended essays on the issues, press releases and carefully chosen photos to enhance the politician's image. What the new technology offers in addition to the message is the ability for users to interact with their candidates. Some websites feature chat rooms, email reply forms (for volunteering, donations, etc.), online stores, and message posting rooms - areas where users can post their opinions about the candidate or issues for others to see. Not all candidate sites are created equally. Most have only some of the previously mentioned components. The basic sites have the candidate's picture and contact information.

Whether or not candidate websites directly translate into votes remain to be seen. A recent article in the Washington Post observed, "no one can confidently crow that the Web has swayed an election or delivered a single vote". Still no one wants to be left out and candidates have found it prudent to put something on the internet.

That said let us rest assured in our local political races, that all the candidates running for major office have websites. Several running for senate, house and other local seats have websites as well as do most of the political parties.

What follows is a short list of sites that I have found in connection to the local campaign.

Governor: All three major gubernatorial candidates have websites. As of my last visit at the time of this writing here is what these sites have to offer:

Ben Cayetano (http://www.ben4gov.com): A highly financed campaign can afford a nicely done website and this one is no exception. It looks nice, but there isn't much there. No issues listed or what the Governor will be doing in the next 4 years. He does have 3 press releases on his site, 2 of which announce union endorsements. Another is his reply to Mayor Lingle's plan.

Frank Fasi (http://www.hula.net/~fasi): Like his attack ads on TV and in MidWeek, the former mayor's website is an extension of his character and message.

Linda Lingle (http://www.lingle.org): After several design changes, the Lingle campaign site has settled down to become a solid center for the dissemination of her message. The site has been tastefully updated to include a message posting area for users, a listing of her accomplishments, biography and most importantly a listing of her viewpoints on all the pertinent issues.

Web page links to sites of other Hawaii candidates are listed at the Directory of Hawaii Political Links, http://www.politics1.com/hi.htm. The online version of this article available at the SBH website will include active links. Searching in the usual online directories may also yield more political website listings.

Hawaii's political partiy with webpages include:

Hawaii Democrats: http://www.webcom.com/~digitals/states/hi/hiweb.html (This is site hasn't been updated in years)

Hawaii's Republicans: http://www.hawaiigop.org

Hawaii Libertarian Party: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2118/ The Libertarian site may have moved to http://www.hi.lp.org by the time this issue goes to press.

Hawaii Green Party: http://www.GreenHawaii.org/

Probably the most popular cyberplace after election day will be the State Office of Elections site at http://www.hawaii.gov/elections/index.html. The site contains a complete, downloadable list of candidates running for every office in Hawaii, and if they hold to tradition started in 1996, this is where the 1998 election results will also be posted. (The 1996 results are still there).

Finally note that the internet is an ever changing, volatile forum where webpages change overnight, move or disappear completely. Be warned that what I have said may not be true by the time you visit these websites.

* Please note that links on this page will probably go out of date after the general election. This page will be updated until November 3. After that, no updates are planned. All linked pages open in a new window. Sites linked from this page are not necessarily endorsed by SBH or the author/maintainer of this page.