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The year was 2004. A 32 y/o, Iraq War veteran was rallying his troops to run for Congress, as a democrat in a historically Republican district.

The prevailing strategy at the time was that candidates should consider having a website and not to be discouraged if their bland, yet appropriate template-driven site attracted around 20 visitors a day.

For sure, the layout is on the long side, with the majority of the content falling below the fold, requiring site viewers to scroll. However this approach was well strategized...

The highest amount of site traffic regularly visited the homepage and this page had the longest visit duration totals.

The content on the top of the page (above the fold) was updated frequently and employed strong visuals so that it was abundantly clear that the content was new.

Older content was pushed further down the page and generally had a lifespan of two weeks.

The two column layout was staggered so that no matter where the bottom of the user's page fell, the content was clearly continuing.

The "explore the dots" graphic served to highlight the various calls to action for the site.

The news items in the right column were pulled from recent items inserted using the campaign's content management system (CMS) that was programmed by a volunteer.

The CMS was further utilized by creating a PDA-friendly RSS feed for updated information (campaign events, news, upcoming events)