Everybody knows New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is running for reelection and has national ambitions — but good luck finding his campaign on the Internet.
Google “Chris Christie,” and a Wikipedia bio and his official gubernatorial page come up. Christiefornj.com doesn’t show up in at least the first 200 listings — and if you find it, all you see is a photo, a donation button and a way to sign up for emails.
Christie is an example of a common phenomenon among incumbents: online rot. After many politicians get elected, their focus shifts to their official government websites, and their personal Web presence atrophies, disappears or falls low in Google rankings.
The most recent update on Sen. Kay Hagan’s site was on Election Day 2008, while Sen. Tim Johnson’s site has his plans for the 112th Congress. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has links to his MySpace and Facebook accounts — but no link to Twitter.
“It’s obnoxious, and it’s poor behavior on the part of the campaign,” said Jonathan Karush, owner of Liberty Concepts, an online campaign firm that designed sites for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other candidates. “It’s a systemic oversight. When the election ends, so does the online campaign. But if you’re not working all the time building a follower base and raising money online, you’re leaving yourself extremely vulnerable to challengers.”
CONTINUED at Politico.
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