GOP.com: RNC Website Relaunches, Stumbles On First Day

The first day of the RNC's relaunch of its website, GOP.com, has had more than a few stumbles and hiccups -- which Dems have, predictably, gleefully taken every opportunity to highlight.

At best, it has been pointed out, the website has been extremely slow in loading and, at worst, it's been crashing periodically throughout the day. There have also been some content snafus.

Joe Rospars of Blue State Digital and one of the Obama campaign's internet gurus, told Talking Points Memo,

You know your web program is in trouble when your site can't even handle the traffic bump from people making fun of your web program.

Reporters highlighted a rather unfortunate tech glitch: during the first day of the site's launch, when users tried to access a link to the site's "Future GOP leaders" page, instead of seeing a lineup of promising RNC-ers, they were greeted by an error message reading "404 Error: This page could not be found," Talking Points Memo reports. (See screengrab below)

(The "Future GOP leaders" site, which was reportedly left entirely blank for part of the day, has been updated and now contains a call for nominations for future leaders.)

DNC-ers, the New York Daily News writes, have also called attention to the "accomplishments section" -- the most recent "accomplishment" listed is "vouchers for DC schoolchildren in 2004."

The New York Daily News found an additional flub: someone made the mistake of posting some passwords, as well as instructions for how to run new site.

In checking to see who was in the New York State section of the site, (in addition to the other gaffes people have noted) we noticed three members. One was the "rnc-admin."

Curious, we clicked. And there, we found, and downloaded, the

"ForumsAdministrationDocumentation," the "ForumsUserGuide," and the "Admin_Guide," among other things.

Comments

[Bogstomper]

Okay, now it looks like the new GOP site was hacked. Trying to read one of the message board pages takes you to Democrats.org.

[Bogstomper]

Well, I ran into my first conflict with the new GOP site. Apparently they want to keep things clean, so certain words are blocked out, even when the words are used properly.

Try to post the term "homo sapiens," and their message board translates it to "xxxx sapiens." Trés bizarre...

[studioh!]

Well, it's definitely RED. Just not well, read.

[deluxebrand]

but the site does have a really cool little animation/link at the bottom of all the pages...

[daedalus43]

Hmm, check out the Publican logic from "Republican Faces" telling why they're 'Publicans:
1. "I believe the government should follow the Constitution and not tell people what they should do or how they should do it." Sort of like getting out of healthcare and preserving Medicare, right?
2. "I'm a (RE)Publican because I believe in free market values..." Hmmm, Free Market Values? Economics is an attempt to create a science which explains human social interactions which involve the transfer of wealth and wellbeing. The primary values of science are those which allow iconoclastic, open and honest inquiry and debate. Scientific behavior requires acceptance of repeatable, observable results. Ethical scientists never "KNOW" with absolute certainty, and never try to make a case using rhetorical appeals to emotion (which is why they make such poor witnesses in court). So, is that what this guy means by "free market values"? Somehow, I doubt it.

[den1953]

After 5 years of starting a illegal war not taking a terrorist threat seriously and 3,000 + people died on our own shore, torturing enemy combatants ,eavesdropping illegally on Americans, ignoring a city or cities that have been hit hard and lives were lost, loosing all America's credibility in the world, and all most bankrupting America. That should be enough to turn people off about the Republican party and all the good it has done for the country for a long while!

[ohiotechie]

Does anyone else find it odd that the supposedly anti-commie party uses the same type of false imagery propaganda and has chosen the same color of Stalinist Russia?

For all their talk of Obama being either a socialist or communist or nazi (as if they all are interchangeable), it seems to me that the Repubs are the New Stalinists of America...­. They desire a single Red Party Revolution that supposedly seeks to improve everyone's life through hard work but really only improves the lives of the Party leaders. Exactly like the USSR a few decades ago....

You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.....

[Bogstomper]

"...the supposedly anti-commie party uses the same type of false imagery propaganda and has chosen the same color of Stalinist Russia?"

Ordinarily, I'd dismiss that as a leftist rant. However, I've noticed two very Stalinist tendencies in the modern GOP. One is the movement to "purge" the party of moderates. The other is the GOP's anti-science bias, which harkens back to the days when Lysenkoism crippled Soviet progress.

[redsam]

In my opinion, it will extremely difficult for the GOP to come out of this whole mess smelling clean. They just cannot get away from the fact that a majority of them are supercold racists willing to let their prejudice overcome what is good for the country. Just see how they gloated when Chicago did not get the Olympics! And then see how they cried when an American won the Nobel prize!! They call themselves patriots? The problem is that the very few wise ones in the bunch are selfishly tolerating the fanatics hoping for some electoral gains in 2012. They may win some additional seats but it won't change a thing for their image. They are just plain anti-middle class and just inserting middle-class faces of whatever color into their logos will not help their image.

[indy girl]

Nelson says, "HAH-hah!!!!"

Who did this crappy web site job, Michael Steele??

[RSKaz]

Careful of that Y2K, GOP. Or in your case, Y2 Late.

[RSKaz]

If it weren't for the "younger voters," the GOP probably wouldn't be bothering with that "new fangled internets" anyway. It's a fad.

[wmholt]

I think the guy listed as "Jason Chassey" at:

http://our.gop.com/post/jchassey/photos/jasonchassey.html

is really Ted Haggard, or if not, he is a Ted Haggard double.

[wmholt]

The glaring red color burned my retinas. Ouch! What should we expect from people who don't believe in Technology or Science?

The GOP.com web site has been done according to the GOP blueprint for taking any type of action, shooting from the hip and hoping that it all works out in the end. They are obviously not familiar with Murphy's Law, as the invasion of Iraq demonstrated.

[Bogstomper]

I headed over to the site, because I'm a Republican who wants to reform the GOP, and HuffPo isn't the best place for me to do that. I've started a blog over there, too. We'll see if they allow a critical GOP voice to speak out.

More importantly, we'll see if they listen...

[DragonMama]

Good luck.

[shades]

Let us know. Although I'm an die-hard liberal, my son was a moderate republican (darn rebellious kids). We had many civil, intelligent political discussions but he complained more and more that the crazy people were taking over his party. I asked him why he didn't switch to independent and at first his reaction was "Why should I leave? They should leave and form their own party." I remember the day he called to tell me he had registered as an independent. He said he couldn't take it any more.

[zero1319]

"When users tried to access a link to the site's 'Future GOP leaders' page, instead of seeing a lineup of promising RNC-ers, they were greeted by an error message reading '404 Error: This page could not be found.'"

Pretty astute commentary for a technical glitch.

[indy girl]

From the direction of the GOP this past 12 months, it wasn't a glitch.