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Due to popular demand, we at The Daily Cardinal have reviewed the campaign websites for every candidate for Wisconsin governor and ranked them using the S-F scale, with “S” being the best and “F” being the worst. Only the quality and content of candidates’ websites, not their policies and positions, were not taken into account during this ranking. In short, this is for single issue voters whose single issue is website design. Could the Badger Herald think of this? I don’t think so!
Already dropped out Tier – Bill Berrien, Ryan Strnad and Josh Schoemann
Anti-trans advocate Bill Berrien dropped out of the Republican primary last September after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that he followed a trangender porn star named Jiz Lee on the website Medium. I could not find his website even after using the Wayback Machine. Womp womp.
Milwaukee beer vendor Ryan Strnad dropped out of the Democratic primary and endorsed David Crowley last Fall, but has kept his website up. Despite its lower quality and clear lack of a budget, it has a certain charm and a lot of character. It has clear bullet points, interesting graphics and a joke at the top referencing Strnad’s belief that Wisconsinites should be allowed to sell beer at high school sporting events. It’s safe to say if he were still a candidate, he’d get the S tier.
On the surface, former Republican candidate and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann’s website seemed pretty average, but then I dug deeper and unearthed a horrific discovery. His menu has sub menus, with some leading to other pages while others send you to PDF files. Who wants to read an entire PDF file when visiting a webpage like that? What kind of sick and twisted mind is capable of thinking up sub menus leading to PDF files? What kind of bullshit is that? The website as a whole is over complicated, confusing and frustrating to navigate with few redeeming qualities, originally sending this one to the D-tier, but then he had to drop out and force me to rewrite this.
F Tier – Brett Hulsey
The only website in the F tier belongs to Democratic candidate and former state Rep. Brett Hulsey. Looking at this website, I feel depressed. It clearly has no budget, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t supposed to have been published yet, since it still has a sample page filled with example text boxes. After a small greeting, the second thing you see is a gigantic selfie of Hulsey, followed by some bullet points about his ideas, then, worst of all, screenshots of his policy! Who wants to see screenshots on a campaign website? Due to its low quality and unfinished nature, it gets the F tier.
Side note, everytime I look this guy up I see another insane thing about him. From the time he wanted to hand out KKK robes to protest Scott Walker to the time he was accused of flipping a 9-year-old off his inner tube. He also spent campaign funds on a convertible for “parade campaigning.”
D Tier – No one (Thanks Josh Schoeman…)
Like mentioned earlier, Josh Schoeman was supposed to have the D-tier website, but he had to drop out and ruin things for me. Hope you’re happy, Shoeman! Everyone is gonna think I’m a jackass for having an empty D tier because of you!
C Tier – Joel Brennan, Francesca Hong and Andy Manske
Joel Brennan, a Democratic candidate and former Department of Administration secretary under Gov. Tony Evers, has a website that is in no way bad. I like the green color scheme and the overall idiosyncratic simplicity. However, there is a clear lack of content. There is only a homepage with a “Get To Know Joel” section, along with a “News” section. Not much going on here.
Democratic state Rep. Francesca Hong also has a decent website. I love the policy bullet points with drop down paragraphs to explain her ideas, but she suffers from the opposite problem as Brennan — too much. There is content overload on her website. My eyes are drawn to a hundred places at once, like the two different banners at the top of the site with a weird text block in the corner that’s just her name four times. Also, while I like how unique the color scheme is, I also find it kind of ugly and abhorrent.
Republican medical service technician Andy Manske has the quality, just not the content. While effervescent in the site’s big picture idealism, there are one too many giant text blocks with paragraphs after paragraphs. The text layout is overwhelming and distracting at times, but at others, it can be somewhat unique and refreshing. This color scheme is red, white and BORING!
Because of their mix of decent quality and issues with too much or too little content, they all get the C tier.
B Tier – Sara Rodriguez and David Crowley
These two Democrats, the Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor and Milwaukee County Executive respectively, have extremely similar websites. From the blue centered color palates to the exact same “box with check mark” style campaign promises. Neither of these are bad websites, but nothing stands out. Because of their bland yet effective style, they get the B tier.
A Tier – Kelda Roys and Tom Tiffany
Democratic State Senator Kelda Roys uses a logo that is classic yet modern, patriotic yet progressive, transgressive yet borderline experimental. Her text is bold and clear. Her website pages are sensible and gets to the point with easy to read graphics. But there is way too much blue. While the rest of her site is exceptional, the blue tsunami is just too much. It gives me a headache. Yes, there is a little red to set it apart from the B tier, but not enough to send her to the S tier.
Republican congressman Tom Tiffany also has an above-average site. It uses bold and easy to read fonts which in many ways act as an esoteric meditation on simplicity within egalitarianism.
On top of this, he uses a classic red, white, and blue color scheme and is clear and concise with his bullet points. My only issue is with these weird little cartoon graphics he has in his “solutions” category. Why is there a graphic of a little guy next to a staircase with a star at the top and some kind of weird blocky pit below it? What does this disturbed, avant-garde, dreamlike abstraction say about the juxtaposition between Tiffany’s mental state and that of his David Lynchian website? On top of this, the little cartoon guy’s arms and legs are melded together, which is off putting and makes me deeply uncomfortable. No S tier for Tiffany.
S Tier - Mandela Barnes and Missy Hughes
To say the former Democratic Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes has a sleek website would be the understatement of the century. It’s got artistic yet ebullient photos of him and his supporters in some kind of strange warehouse type building, has clear campaign promises in easy to read lists and still has a unique style and color scheme to set it apart. While he still uses that all too common progressive light and dark blue, his yellowish-brown highlights make things pop. On top of that, he has one of the only websites I’ve seen with a state of the art banner menu, such a breath of fresh air after countless drop down menus. All in all, if I ever have children, I want them to be like this website.
Democrat Missy Hughes has a refreshing take on the idea of campaign websites as a whole in the modern era. She uses a classical yet boring white background, a move made genius through the use of her bold blues and eye popping yellows and reds. Her bullet points are an instant classic with their use of the “no nonsense approach,” peppered with bits and bobs of relatable humor. The whole site is plastered with images of her feeding a variety of cute farm animals, and who doesn’t love cute farm animals?
These two are truly masterfully made websites, sending them to the S tier. Whether or not the website quality has any effect on the candidates will be determined during the partisan primaries for governor, which will be held over the summer sometime I think, and the general election, which will be in the fall or winter, probably.
