SOCIAL: Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

[Tom Radulovich]



February 4, 2008
LINK BY LINK
Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

By NOAM COHEN
STYLES make fights — or so goes the boxing cliché. In 2008, they  
make presidential campaigns, too.

This is especially true for the two remaining Democrats, Hillary  
Clinton and Barack Obama. Reporters covering the candidates have  
already resorted to traditional analysis of style — fashion choices,  
manner of speaking, even the way they laugh. Yet, according to design  
experts, the candidates have left a clear blueprint of their personal  
style — perhaps even a window into their souls — through the Web  
sites they have created to raise money, recruit volunteers and  
generally meet-and-greet online.

On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between  
hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way:  
Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.

That is, Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white  
space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one  
used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was  
designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using  
branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so  
popular.

“With Obama’s site, all the features and elements are seamlessly  
integrated, just like the experience of using a program on a  
Macintosh computer,” said Alice Twemlow, chairwoman of the M.F.A.  
program in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts (who is a  
Mac user).

It is designed, she said, even down to the playful logos that  
illustrate choices like, Volunteer or Register to Vote. She likened  
those touches to the elaborate, painstaking packaging Apple uses to  
woo its customers.

The linking of Mr. Obama with Mac and Mrs. Clinton with PCs has  
already become something of a theme during the primary. Early in the  
campaign, a popular YouTube parody of Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl  
ad made Mrs. Clinton the face of oppression. This week on The  
Huffington Post, Douglas T. Kendall, the founder of the Community  
Rights Counsel, a public interest law firm, made the connection more  
explicit.

But the designers believe the comparisons — but not perhaps the  
Orwellian overtones — are apt. In contrast to barackobama.com, Mrs.  
Clinton’s site uses a more traditional color scheme of dark blue,  
has sharper lines dividing content and employs cookie-cutter icons  
next to its buttons for volunteering, and the like.

“Hillary’s is way more hectic, it’s got all these, what look  
like parody ads,” said Ms. Twemlow, who is not a citizen and cannot  
vote in the election.

Jason Santa Maria, creative director of Happy Cog Studios, which  
designs Web sites, detected a basic breach of netiquette.  
“Hillary’s text is all caps, like shouting,” he said. There  
are “many messages vying for attention,” he said, adding,  
“Candidates are building a brand and it should be consistent.”

But Emily Chang, the cofounder of Ideacodes, a Web designing and  
consulting firm, detected consistent messages, and summed them up:  
“His site is more youthful and hers more regal.”

Mr. Obama’s site is almost universally praised. Even Martin Avila,  
the general manager of the company responsible for the Republican Ron  
Paul’s Web site, said simply, “Barack’s site is amazing.”

But the compliments are clearly double-edged.

While Apple’s ad campaign maligns the PC by using an annoying man in  
a plain suit as its personification, it is not clear that aligning  
with the trendy Mac aesthetic is good politics. The iPod may be a  
dominant music player, but the Mac is still a niche computer. PC, no  
doubt, would win the Electoral College by historic proportions (with  
Mac perhaps carrying Vermont).

While Mr. Santa Maria praised barackobama.com for having “this  
welcoming quality,” he added that it was “ethereal, vaporous and  
someone could construe it as nebulous.” He said there was a bit of  
the “Lifetime channel effect, you know, vasoline on the lens” to  
create a softer effect on the viewer. The “hectic” site that the  
Clinton campaign is offering could actually be quite strategic,  
exactly in step with her branding. After all, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly  
emphasizes how hard she will work for the average American “starting  
on Day 1.” If she comes across as energetic online, that may simply  
be her intention. If she shouts a bit more, typographically speaking,  
that may be the better to be heard.

Unlike the Republicans, the Democratic contenders have incorporated  
social-networking tools to their sites — allowing supporters to  
create their own groups, for example, though Mr. Obama is considered  
the pacesetter in that regard.

“Obama’s campaign gained attention here in the Bay area tech  
community early on when he launched the My.BarackObama.com portal  
that allowed for personal blogging from the public, messaging with  
other supporters, and a host of other tools,” Ms. Chang wrote in an  
e-mail message.

On the big Internet issues like copyright, Lawrence Lessig, a  
Stanford law professor who is supporting Mr. Obama, said there was  
“not a big difference on paper” between the two Democrats. Both  
tend to favor the users of the Internet over those who “own the  
pipes.” He is impressed by Mr. Obama’s proposal to “make all  
public government data available to everybody to use as they wish.”

In the long run, however, Mr. Lessig believes that it is the ability  
to motivate the electorate that matters, not simple matters of style.  
And he’s a Mac user from way back.


Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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