In keeping with my promise to cover each of the candidates equally when examining an issue, today I'll take a look at the companies (and more specifically the locations of the companies) who have designed each of the campaign web sites for the governor's race.

Scott Walker:

WISN has already covered the fact that Scott Walker's site was designed by a firm in Ohio.  It's a nice site, though I have some minor issues with it. For one, the site improperly asks Twitter users for both their Twitter name and password in order to "Tweet for Scott Walker". This is highly insecure, and nobody should use this. The proper method would be to use OAuth, which allows users to Login into Twitter, and then authorize the campaign site to publish to Twitter with their name. The myscottspot.org site also has users create user names and passwords, but has no SSL option. This is also insecure.

Tom Barrett:

Tom has just revealed his new website design. And guess what... it was designed by a firm in Boston! Kind of puts a little wrinkle in Tom's entire section he devotes to creating jobs in Wisconsin doesn't it?  What's the matter Tom, aren't there any qualified Wisconsin companies who can do website work for you?  Ironically enough, Liberty Concepts also lists the Wisconsin Democratic Party on it's portfolio as well. Apparently the entire Wisconsin Democratic block would rather create jobs out of state too.  I'm sure my friend Chris (Capper) will be sure to equally criticize Barrett for sending jobs out of Wisconsin.*

Mark Nuemann:

Mark Nuemann's website interesting enough says "Made in Wisconsin", although I couldn't easily find any details about which firm created the site. If you happen to know, be sure to drop a comment.

Reality:

* I really don't give two figs about which design firm created the campaign's websites... except that this should expose a little hypocrisy among those who criticized Walker for going out of state. While I think there are plenty of quality design firms in the area (and I've worked with several), there are many reasons to go with one company over another.  These include cost, staff who may have worked with a company previously and have a relationship with them already, as well as a pre-existing platform that others may not offer.  In fact, the entire concept of laws that require that a certain amount of work, or products, be made in state, or in this country, goes against the very concepts of free markets and optimal utilization of resources... you know... good economics.