If your first thought of President Barack Obama’s new White House website change is the above title of this post or even a “Wow! That looks nice,” it is time to update the look of your company’s website. Within an hour of Obama’s inauguration, the White House website underwent a whole site redesign to look as the following:

The site redesign is not perfect (I am allowed to have some quibbles) as it could have some stronger call-to-actions, SEO, etc., however, considering this is a government website, the design is very well done.

This only raises the bar for full-service interactive advertising agencies dealing in creative, heurestic analyses, and SEO all around, I will attest to that.

Oh, and the site is using WebTrends:

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I wonder if Web Analytics companies have to go through the same bidding process as contractors do?

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Two hundred thirty-two years after the Declaration of Independence with the phrase:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…”

Enshrined into our imperfect US Constitution was an imperfect union that limited the right of those truths to white land-holding men, delegating blacks to 3/5 of a person to count only for taxes and representatives for those white land-holding men in order to deal with the dichotomy of slavery between the northern and southern states.

A brutal civil war and pain-staking Civil Rights Movement removed many of those imperfections, but feelings lingered for many affecting the cultures of race, politics, and communities. Lives were lost, cultural heritages destroyed, families split apart, and politics of fear used to strike terror in the unknown or differences within America.

Yet, the brilliant gems in the American ideals that has stood its time is and will always be that anyone, anywhere around the world could come to America, strike a living, become a citizen of the United States of America, and potentially see their own naturally born son or daughter become the President of the United States. That no matter your race, culture, creed, and so forth, you have the opportunity to become a part of the United States unlike nearly every other nation on the Earth.

The United States has stumbled through many periods of its short history, but continues to learn from its mistakes and come back to the core ideals of the American dream that has made it stand strong. We may not always do as we preach, but when we do, we shine greater than any star save Sol. When we hold to our ideals, it shines through, whether as the shining beacon on the hill or through the change that we bring to the world.

It is in our ever-changing US Constitution that the American people believe that change positively can affect our lives without destroying the essentials of who we are as Americans or as human beings. We are a country of odd beliefs, proposing grand ideas such as the League of Nations, then refusing to join it, only to finally bring it to fruition with the United Nations. A country that loves new words and new cultures, mix it around, and call it our own. We are a country that soon will be a majority of minorities.

And now we are a country that has elected the first black President in the Western world into the world’s most powerful and most influential nation. The United States of America’s 44th President, Barack Hussein Obama.

Two hundred and thirty-two years after our declaration of independence, the United States is now ruled (okay, technically not until 2009) by a face that is not of Anglo-Saxon origin. When he travels around the world, he now embodies the change, the uniqueness, and the ideals of America. He brings disonance to the propaganda that the US only talks about its ideals, but never acts on it. He proves that a son of a man from Africa can become the leader of the free world. He proves that having a unique name, even an Arabic name of a dictator we just overthrew, does not disqualify him to the American people in choosing him to lead our nation from the White House.

The transformation for the US and the world has only just begun for a better way. The change that we all can believe in has only just started. Yet, President Barack Obama has only finished the easy part–hope can only go so far. His expectations by many far and wide are very high and the challenges that the US and world face are numerous. Nonetheless, for this night the toast goes to President Barack Obama and his transformational win to the world, to the US, and to the American people.

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This election cycle has brought about a number of websites providing some rather cool interactive electoral maps to engage people and keep them coming back to their respective sites. As a fan of politics (and obviously the web) myself, below are some sites I have come across with the positives and negatives associated with them:

270towin (my presidential predictions were based off of this previously):

• Positives: Easy to quickly change states from red to blue to toss-up, can split Maine and Nebraska electoral votes, shows the number of winning combinations, probabilities of who can win, a long history of past elections, and a 2008 electoral simulator
• Negatives: The map looks too childish and only does presidential level
• Things to improve: The simulator should not be done randomly, but rather by how the polls close (eg: East Coast to West Coast). If they really wanted to impress people, they could do fake videos for each state acting like the media does by calling it throughout the night depending on how you choose the states (or based on polling data) as this would certainly keep people coming back.

RealClearPolitics:

• Positives: Solid map (looks professional), shows the electoral spread over time, provides an easy to see polling changes, and does Congressional level
• Negatives: No Maine and Nebraska split ability and does not explain how they calculate their results leading to charges of them being biased towards the Republicans (and even though the map still shows a very strong possibility of Obama winning, their testimonials pretty much come from right-wing sites or people)
• Things to improve: Multiple kinds of maps to show electoral power of states rather than just their regular size to understand the importance of how many votes a state actually has.

Economist:

• Positives: Innovative to have the world vote through the similarity of the US electoral college for the world, gives backgrounds on each candidate with latest news, and can quickly go from country to country to see information on them
• Negatives: The number of electoral votes for the US is incorrect (they have it at 432 instead of 538), no explanation on the number of online votes needed to show votes for either candidate, and cannot click on French Guinea as you can with Greenland
• Things to improve: Same idea of showing electoral power of states, could make it more interactive by running it as a future world-wide vote for leader of the whole world rather than for the US president.

Update (5:25PM):

FiveThirtyEight is another one that’s good for seeing polling predictions based on some statistical analyses, but not necessarily for people to interact with.

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Regardless of where you stand on the issues, Barack Obama’s speech at Invesco Stadium for the Democratic Convention was extremely well done. Here’s the beginning clip, but it really should be seen in full:

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You know someone has had way too much free time on their hand to create this Barack Obama rick roll video:

Then again, it could be clever political advertising for the Internet generation. At least Obama knows how to use the Internet, much less use a computer compared to McCain.

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Thomas Crampton has a good post and video on how policy leaders believe China would vote for Obama. Why:

China would vote for Obama in part because he is from a minority ethnic group, said Shen Dingli of Shanghai’s Fudan University.

Of course rightly notes the irony:

Somewhat ironic to poll people living in countries with varying levels of electoral and dictatorial governments about how they feel about the US elections. Wonder how Myanmar would vote? Imagine Vietnam is pro-McCain. Anyone know?

His post reminds me of something I forgot to mention when I went to the Asia Foundation’s talk back in February on the role of governance. One of the many hopes for the world, and even those who live under dictatorships, is for America to right itself after this administration and once again show why America is often seen as the best hope for humanity and for the rights of anyone.

All the panelists agreed how the current administration has reduced our standing in the world to the lowest ever with such vitriol dislike, but that, with just the election of Barack Obama, America would make up half of the harm it has done. The semi-joke being Africa is happy and with a middle name of ‘Hussein’ Middle Easterners are then impressed as well seeing how America really does stand up to its unique and moral values every so often.

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Because I enjoy politics (international politics all the more), I had to put in my two cents on what I believe the outcome will be for the upcoming election. These are of course my own personal guesses, so feel free to mock me if/when I’m wrong post-November. The images come courtesy of 270towin.com, even providing for the unique electoral situations in Nebraska and Maine!

Let’s begin by showing my “Realistic Prediction” (ie: what I believe the outcome will be):

A best case scenario:

followed by a worst case scenario:

Only time will tell of course… thoughts?

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They really really do!

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The Moderate Voice has a must read interview about David Frum’s thoughts on how Conservatives will have to change towards the future in order to make a comeback into American politics. From a marketing perspective, I feel that this is the right way for Conservatives, even if I do not necessarily agree with all the policies.

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Ron Paul could not win in New Hampshire with independents in the Republican Party in the most libertarian state of the nation, and therefore in my opinion I am calling it now for the end of Ron Paul’s candidacy. Sure, he can pull a Howard Dean and get some great/cushy position after the fact, but as of trying to win the Presidency, if the libertarian guy cannot do well in a libertarian state, then explain how he can do well anywhere else?

Essentially it’s like Guiliani not winning the race in New York–if he cannot win in the state where he should be the most popular–then he certainly is not going to do any better elsewhere.

Hate mail be damned, Ron Paul is effectively finished in his run for the Presidency.

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