As the 2012 Presidential Election heats up, a lot of money and effort is being put into technology infrastructure. I thought it would be fun to do a quick survey of what technology various organizations, on both sides of the aisle, are using so far this campaign season. I spent a few minutes fingerprinting the web content management system (CMS) and web servers currently in use by the top PACs, SuperPACs, and active candidates. As you can see in these graphs, 1) Apache is the dominant web server and 2) more than half of the organizations are still using custom CMS platforms (boo!!). The complete dataset follows in the tables.
It's interesting to note that the use of opensource CMS systems (Wordpress, Drupal) is much more prevalent by SuperPACs, presumably because they sprung into existance after the July, 2010 SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission ruling. There is no clear CMS affinity based on political viewpoint, but it appears (at least in this 40 organization sample) only organizations with a marked conservative viewpoint are currently using the Microsoft IIS web platform. Newt Gingrich is the only team in this set using a native java environment; I'll bite my tongue on that.
Technology was such a big player in the 2008 election -- it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months.
| Group | Viewpoint | CMS Platform | Web Server | URL | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restore Our Future | Conservative | Wordpress | Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) | http://restoreourfuture.com/ | ||
| Winning Our Future | Conservative | Custom | Microsoft-IIS/7.0 | http://www.winningourfuture.com/ | ||
| Make Us Great Again | Conservative | Wordpress | Apache | http://makeusgreatagain.com/ | ||
| Endorse Liberty | Conservative | Custom | Apache | http://www.endorseliberty.com | ||
| Our Destiny | Conservative | unknown | unknown | unknown | ||
| Red White and Blue | Conservative | Wordpress | Apache/2.2 | http://rwbfund.com/ | ||
| House Majority PAC | Liberal | Wordpress | Apache | http://www.thehousemajoritypac.com/ | ||
| American Crossroads | Conservative | Wordpress | Apache/2.2 | http://www.americancrossroads.org/ | ||
| Club for Growth Action | Conservative | Custom | Microsoft-IIS/6.0 | http://www.clubforgrowth.org/action/ | ||
| 9-9-9 Fund | Conservative | Drupal | nginx/1.0.4 | http://americansforhermancain.com/ | ||
| Citizens for a Working America PAC | Conservative | site down | - | http://www.citizensforaworkingamericapac.com/ | ||
| Majority PAC | Liberal | Wordpress | Apache | http://www.majority2012.com/ | ||
| Priorities USA Action | Liberal | Custom | Apache | http://www.prioritiesusaaction.org/ | ||
| Santa Rita Super PAC | Conservative | Custom | Microsoft-IIS/7.0 | http://www.santaritasuperpac.org/ | ||
| Freedomworks for America | Conservative | Drupal | Apache | http://www.freedomworks.org/ | ||
| Women Vote! | Liberal | unknown | unknown | unknown | ||
| Strong America Now | Conservative | Drupal | lighttpd/1.4.26 | http://strongamericanow.org/ | ||
| Leaders for Families | Conservative | unknown | unknown | unknown | ||
| Rethink PAC | Liberal | Custom | Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) | http://rethinkbrown.com/ | ||
| Communications Workers of America | Liberal | Custom | Apache | http://www.cwa-union.org/ | ||
| Cooperative of American Physicians | Custom | Apache | http://www.capphysicians.com/ | |||
| Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow | Custom | Apache | http://www.colbertsuperpac.com/ | |||
| Revolution PAC | Conservative | Custom | nginx | http://revolutionpac.com | ||
| Conservative Action Fund | Conservative | Wordpress | Apache mod_qos/9.69 mod_f | http://gored131.com/ | ||
| The Lanterns Project | Liberal | Wordpress | Apache | http://santorumexposed.com/ | ||
| Group | Viewpoint | CMS Platform | Web Server | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic National Committee | Liberal | Custom | Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) | http://www.democrats.org |
| Obama Victory Fund 2012 | Liberal | Custom | Apache | http://www.barackobama.com/ |
| Republican National Committee | Conservative | Custom | Microsoft-IIS/7.0 | http://www.gop.com |
| Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee | Liberal | Custom | Apache | http://www.dccc.org/ |
| National Republican Congressional Committee | Conservative | Custom | Microsoft-IIS/6.0 | http://nrcc.org/ |
| Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee | Liberal | Custom | nginx/1.0.0 | http://www.dscc.org/ |
| National Republication Senatorial Committee | Conservative | Wordpress | Apache | http://www.nrsc.org |
| ActBlue | Liberal | Custom | Apache | http://actblue.com |
| Service Employees International Union | Liberal | Custom | Apache | http://www.seiu.org/ |
| Emily's List | Liberal | Custom | Apache | http://emilyslist.org/ |
| Candidate | Viewpoint | CMS Platform | Web Server | URL | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newt Gingrich | Conservative | Custom | Jetty/5.1.15 | http://newtgingrich360.com/ | ||
| Mitt Romney | Conservative | Drupal | nginx | http://www.mittromney.com/ | ||
| Rick Santorum | Conservative | Drupal | Apache | http://www.ricksantorum.com | ||
| Ron Paul | Conservative | Wordpress | Apache/2.2.16 (Debian) | http://www.ronpaul2012.com/ | ||
| Barack Obama | Liberal | Custom | Apache | http://www.barackobama.com/ | ||