Continuing a series on reviewing candidates based on their websites, we will be looking at all the candidates who have filed for Montana’s at large congressional seat. The format will be the same as the previous editions and only those candidates listed on the state filing site will be reviewed.

Note: The purpose of this series is based on the notion that a number of voter’s will use candidate websites to help make a decision. The same as with consumers, these voters are apt to only spend a short time period looking for information and this series is an evaluation of how the candidates present themselves and their platforms. In short I am asking the question “Does the candidate’s website serve the purpose of providing easily accessible information to the voter?”

Jim Hunt (D): The very first thing that I noticed about Jim Hunt’s site is the familiarity of the color and atmosphere and soon realized that it put me in mind of a certain other maverick’s site. Overall, the site is inviting, clean, crisp and easily navigable. Hunt’s site is broken down into sections like ‘About Jim’, ‘Contact’, ‘Press Releases’ and the all important ‘Issues’ section.

About Jim: Here the reader gets very quick facts about Mr Hunt. In a few short sentences we learn about his military service, education, affiliation with the NRA and Episcopal church as well as his career as a consumer lawyer. Compact and easily digestible, this section will serve well for those with a short attention span.

In The News: Here the reader gets to see some headlines relating to Hunt’s congressional bid. This type of section can provide extremely useful for voters seeking more information about the candidate. Currently, there are many listings from a variety of sources. From blogs to newspapers, this section will provide the interested voter with a spring board to begin independent candidate research.

Issues: This is the most useful section of any candidate website and is generally the most logical place to see how a candidate’s position lines up with yours. Jim Hunt has a very thorough issues page covering topics like Iraq, Health Care, Public Lands, Veterans, Gun Rights, Privacy and Stem Cell Research. A large picture of himself in his USMC combat gear will score credibility points on topics like Iraq, Veterans and Gun Control. All in all, I was able to easily find information on every topic important to me as a voter with the exception of conservation, which was actually covered under the topic ‘Energy’.

Press Releases: Much like the ‘In The News’ sections, this type of section can provide a very useful place to provide more detailed information for the voter. While this may be used more effectively in the future, Jim Hunt’s site only lists four press releases currently.

Overall Impression: If I were a voter just beginning the process of researching a candidate, I would find Jim Hunt’s site easy to use and effective at giving me the tools to begin making a decision.

Dennis Rehberg (R): The first thing that I noticed about Dennis Rehberg’s site is that there is a video that starts on autoplay and does not have any visible controls to stop it from playing (after a few minutes, I discovered that I could right click and uncheck the ‘Play’ menu item to make it stop). This will be a major turn off to many voters who are not interested in watching video. Perhaps they are in a library, at work or just watching TV and an auto playing video can cause problems. The next thing I noticed is that the site contains exactly one section: Donate.

Overall Impression:Other than a short letter, there is absolutely no information for the interested voter. In a departure, I am including a screen capture to demonstrate the sparseness of Denny Rehberg’s website. This website is useless for the voter, unless ‘Donate’ is the only information he cares to pass along.

Robert Candee (D): First impressions of Robert’s site is that it is crisp and clean in appearance, with photos that basically shout ‘Agriculture’. The text of the front page actually conveys a lot of useful information on Robert’s background, priorities and qualifications. It doesn’t get much easier to find information than that. In addition, Candee’s site is broken up into useful sections like ‘Personal Background’ , ‘Platform’ and ‘Gallery’.

Personal Background: This is actually the same as the front page, which was a little confusing and caused me to click several times waiting for something new. As I said above though, there is a lot of good information here.

Platform: Much like the images on this front page, his platform screams Agriculture, as it is by far the largest section with charts and graphs. This is positive, as it is most likely the information that he most wants to share with voters. Additional topics covered include Health Care, Immigration, Renewable Energy and Ethics. There is more than enough information here to give the voters a reasonable idea of Candee’s platform.

Gallery: While this section is missing from the other candidate’s sites, galleries are useful sections for letting voters feel a little more like they know the candidate. While it may seem more shallow than textual representations, human’s are visual. Seeing how a candidate interacts with others and the scenes they choose to portray can provide valuable context for the voters while considering candidates. In this case, I am not sure that Candee’s choice of imagery will convey a sense of congressional stature, which could distract from the effectiveness of the page.

Other Interests: Here Robert presents a little more context about himself, his views on alternative energy as well as public service work he has performed.

Overall Impression: Candee’s sight has some formatting issues, but is a good source for getting a broad picture his platform and qualifications. The technical problems with the site lie in the fact that it uses frames, which makes it impossible for me to provide links to the specific sections. Another interesting part is that there is no path to making a donation to Candee’s campaign, which will likely lead voters to question the seriousness of Candee’s campaign.

Mike Fellows (L): The first thing I notice about Mike Fellow’s site is the large banner proclaiming that “The Second Amendment Is Not About Hunting”. The second thing I noticed is that the short paragraphs of text actually do provide a quick and easy overview of Mike’s platform and intentions. The third thing I notice is a picture of Mike standing next to a stunning VW van. The general appearance of the site is pleasing enough but has some formatting issue in the navigation bar. The site does include several useful sections, such as ‘About Us’, ‘The War On Alternative Medicine’ and ‘News’.

About Us: This section might be misnamed, as it is really only about Mike as a singular man. This section give a little information on Mr Fellows and then it gets a little confusing. Under the title ‘Facts’ there is a sentence that says “A rating Gun Owners Of America”, but there is no indication of what that rating might be. There is also some useful information on Mike’s party affiliation.

Reduce Spending: This section provides the potential voter with some information on Mike’s fiscal policy.

Media: It is at this point that the observant voter might make note that this site is simply recycled from Mike’s previous run at the house, noting pictures of Monica Lindeen’s bus. Most of the pictures show Mike holding a sign by himself, very small groups of people and parade entries. As with Robert, I am not sure that this page will display a sense of congressional stature.

The War On Alternative Medicine: A short paragraph on Fellow’s view on alternative medicine.

News: This page provides a list of headlines along with useless links. For instance, there is the headline “Fellows responds to health research” with a link here. A search of that site shows absolutely no results for Mike Fellows. This type of thing will be very distracting to voters looking for real information.

Overall Impression Mike Fellow’s candidate website is laid out differently than one might expect. Instead of an ‘Issues’ section, he has important issues listed as their own sections. Besides being short on content, it is also severely outdated.

In Summary: For general appearance, all the sites are OK and have their relative strengths. For content, Dennis Rehberg’s site is the hands down loser and Jim Hunt’s the hands down winner. Where each of the other candidates site’s will provide useful information for perspective voters, Rehberg’s site will provide none.