Overnight I wrote about my discovery Daria Novak’s congressional campaign website was built using Probama, a WordPress ‘theme’ (which defines the site’s look) which claims:
A timely WordPress theme for supporters of Senator Barack Obama’s political career and presidential campaign. Built-in control panel options allow easy management of images, video, podcasts and other RSS info.
That’s somewhat ironic as Ms. Novak is decidedly not an Obama supporter.
Truth is, if you read her bio, she is a very accomplished person. My blogging has nothing to do with her qualifications. She has done a lot. I just found the irony irresistible. I’d feel the same way if she were a Democrat using material designed to promote John McCain or George Bush.
Last night I wrote, “My bet is Daria Novak will soon have a new look on her campaign’s website–and again, it’s a really well designed site. I hope I’m wrong, but “Probama?” That’ll be difficult.”
Sure enough today the look is different. The background has been removed as has any reference to Probama in the code. That’s a shame because the original theme author, Darren Hoyt, who lets anyone freely use his work no longer gets credit. He isn’t totally surprised.
“Holy cow, that is really funny. I have actually gotten some email from people saying essentially, “I’m gonna use your theme to make an ANTI-Obama site, hahaha!” but I haven’t seen anyone using it quite this unknowingly/ironically.”
Oh, it’s still Probama under-the-hood. The screencap on the left (click it to enlarge) is a small comparison between the original Probama and the Daria Novak site today. There are some cosmetic differences–not many.
Here’s why I started this thread in the first place. I knew Ms Novak (or any Republican candidate) wouldn’t want to be associated with anything having anything to do with Barack Obama no matter how tenuous the connection. I’m guessing the same would apply to a Democrat in a similar situation. What she was using was well designed and suited her (and I assume approved by her)–it just made a positive reference to Obama.
Why does that mere fact make it bad?
If Candidate Novak can take anything away from this it’s that no one but me really cares. I posted a link to last night’s entry on Facebook and got no response from my 1,500+ friends. Same thing here, no comments.