Consider this post a public service.
I know some candidates out there are strapped for cash and wandering aimlessly in the World Wide Wilderness.
But seriously, there's no good excuse for some of their flat-out terrible Web sites.
In this list, the flip side to my list of top campaign Web sites, I'm not trying to put down any candidates themselves.
What I'm saying is that it's time, politicos, to do your voters a real service: Step into the 21st century.
Susanne Atanus, Republican for the 9th U.S. House District of Illinois
From the header: "She's the one! For our future and for the greatest Economic Stimulus!"
For our future?
C'mon. This Web site looks like it was built in 1995.
It's not even a site, really. It's a one-page pitch to any unlucky prospective voter who happens upon her URL.
From her tiny portrait to simplistic descriptions of policy positions, this page spells disaster.
We're going to bet that her request — "please send campaign contributions to my address shown above" — has gone mostly, if not completely, unheeded.
Michael Bendas, Republican for the 3rd U.S. House District of Illinois
You know those fliers some marketers put under your windshield wiper — the 8.5-by-11-inch sheets of paper folded into three sides, with some basic information about a local business?
This Web site is like that, but on your computer screen.
The home page has three columns, rich with cliches and quotations from our nation's forefathers.
One of Bendas' mantras is "hand up, not hand out." Well, raise your hands, young conservative technophiles: Build this man a new Web site.
Danny Davis, Democrat for the 7th U.S. House District of Illinois
1996: That's when Davis was elected to the House of Representatives.
You'd think that by now, he's figured out how to order up a good campaign Web site.
Not so.
To be fair, Davis' Web site is better organized than Atanas' or Bendas'.
But its appearance is so elementary that it could have been an elementary school project.
The design mistakes are all over the place.
There's the letter he wrote to visitors on Nov. 9, when he announced his bid for re-election. That belongs inside the site somewhere, not frozen on the home page.
There's the list of endorsements that is "in formation." Seriously, Davis can't list a single endorsement after more than a dozen years in federal elected office?
Of course he can. But he can't seem to grasp the importance of an updated Web site.