The race to the White House officially begins today, with Ted Cruz being the first candidate to announce his candidacy for what many expect to be a crowded Republican primary.
But already the Ted Cruz camp is playing defense.
Behold! www.TedCruz.com.
"SUPPORT PRESIDENT OBAMA. IMMIGRATION REFORM NOW!" the website crudely displays in a black and gray color scheme. There is nothing else for visitors to see -- not about Ted Cruz, his work as a U.S. Senator, his White House campaign, or anything that could serve his interests.
If you find this hilarious, then you're not alone. Already, screenshots of the website, along with several tweets, are making the rounds across the Internet. Surely somebody on the Cruz campaign thought of reserving or purchasing this domain, arguably the first step when deciding to launch any website. But what can we expect from the man who did not understand net neutrality?
According to Mother Jones and the New York Magazine, the domain belongs to an Arizona attorney who bears the same name at Senator Ted Cruz.
This is just one of the Republican Party's latest technological mishaps.
In what can only be described as a desperate attempt to reach a broader audience, last week the House Judiciary Committee published a press release condemning President Obama's most recent actions on immigration. However, this was not your traditional copy against a white background press release, no, this was a press release full of memes! Ultimately the sheer number of dumbfounded visitors crashed the committee's website.
As with the infamous John Boehner email blast, Republicans used animated GIFs to market their points to a younger audience, but still missed the mark.
The @immigrationGOP Twitter account is another example of Republicans' poor judgement on digital media. At first glance, this handle seems like a potential vehicle to promote the Republican Party's strategy to fix our broken immigration system. Sadly, you would be wrong.
The account is in fact described as "news, info, and updates on Senate Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Sessions, from his press office." Except in this case "news and updates" means selective messages crafted by Senator Session's press office that highlight his hostility towards meaningful immigration reform.
Considering Sessions' blatant hostility toward meaningful immigration reform, why would the Republican Party allow one of their immigration hardliners to brand a Twitter account under the party banner, claim a single position, and sell it as a source of information for the Senate's Subcommittee on Immigration?
Digital media is effective when it enhances the debate and fosters a solution, and @immigrationGOP doesn't even come close.
Ted Cruz, Jeff Sessions and the rest of the Republican Party -- please do not use the fun side of the Internet to try and hide the fact that you would much rather post GIFs than tackle the issues facing our nation.
To put it in a format you're more comfortable with:
|￣￣￣￣￣￣ |
|IMMIGRATION |
| REFORM |
| NOW |
| ＿＿＿＿＿__ |
(\__/) ||
(•ㅅ•) ||
/ づ