County Level Political Party Internet Website Comparisons.

A generally accepted political science maxim is that all politics are local. With the exception of the 1980s Party Transformation Study, little research has been done on V.O. Key's party-as-organization role with respect to local (county) political parties. The emergence of the Internet as a key political tool provides an opportunity for research on organizational strengths of county political parties through evaluations of their respective websites. This research project compares county political party websites in California, Pennsylvania and Texas, using an original website evaluation instrument that measures website characteristics, political organization information, political information content, party transaction and participation services, and interactive, connected links to other websites. The project tests population, income and prior voting record as predictors of respective county political party website evaluations. The results indicate that the Internet (as reflected through county party websites) is still a relatively infrequent political tool at the county political party level. Surprisingly, the Democratic Party has a significant competitive advantage over the Republican Party based on evaluation of these county political party websites. The research project identifies opportunities for further investigation of the use of county political party websites as a metric for county political party organizational strength. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]