Behind the Candidates was a website created for the 2008 presidential election. It was conceived to answer a simple question: who will be advising our next president?
In an ideal world, the advisors of a candidate running for office warrant as much scrutiny as the candidate themselves–they are the ones shaping policy, they are the voice of authority a president will rely on to steer them in the right direction.
With this as our compass, Ian Boyle and I researched over 60 top advisors from the McCain and Obama campaigns and assembled an interactive dossier for each person–including several descriptive quotes (or direct quotes from them), their biographical information and past positions, and links to interviews or speeches. The advisors were organized by category–each advisor is arranged side-by-side with their counterpart and introduced with one compelling quote–one click further reveals the full profile with links to all original sources. Viewers can sift through hundreds of links to articles and video clips for an in-depth look at the makeup of each campaign, or simply scroll through for a quick composite of each advisor.
By election day we had visitors from nearly 100 different countries (and all 50 states). After the election, many of President Obama’s key advisors who went on to high-profile positions were originally profiled on our site.
Co-creator: Ian Boyle
Awards/Recognition: Communication Arts, Poynter Institute for Journalism, Art Director’s Club, Good Magazine, Creative Review, I.D. Magazine
