Problem 1: Please pick ANY Washington-based interest group or advocacy organization.
As the basis of your analysis. What makes for a successful political website. Assess this site in terms of the principles dealing with interactivity, usability, and content. Also, any examples from other Washington-based interest group or advocacy organization websites to illustrate what is lacking would be a plus.
IMPORTANT: For Part 2, include the hyperlink of the organization's Website you chose.
2: Statement Analysis
Scenario
Assume you are the press secretary to Democrat Senator Joe Smith, who is up for re-election in 2008. You log on to the Web late Friday night to check your email and find a reporter has emailed you asking about the senator's views on the availability of adult videos at Blockbuster stores. He adds that he has unsubstantiated tip from an anonymous source that the Senator's campaign manager, who is also his nephew, has a history of renting XXX videos from a neighborhood store. The reporter says the Washington Post will need a comment for a story that may run on Monday. He would like to speak directly with the senator; his deadline is Sunday night at 6 P.M.
Just yesterday, you were in a meeting with others planning the campaign. The number one concern among all involved is to prevent the opposition from casting the Senator as soft on crime. The senator's fall opponent is the newly retired director (and 30-year veteran) of the FBI's Boston field office, Mrs. Jane Doe. (The opposition research report commissioned by the campaign included a reference to a claim that Mrs. Doe's husband may have rented adult movies at his local video store but the researcher could not confirm the allegation.) The theme of the upcoming Smith campaign is to be: "Senator Smith: Fighting to Put Massachusetts' Families First."
Assignment
1. Develop a strategy memo advising the senator and the campaign on what steps to take to respond to this inquiry.
2. Explain in detail the approach you think the campaign or the senator should take—from holding a press conference to undertaking an interview to issuing a statement, etc.—to address this inquiry.
3. Explain your reasoning for these steps, the overall strategy, and be detailed in your suggested tactics/timeline.
4. If you argue for the campaign to release a statement, then also draft the statement and add an explanation of why.