5/30/08 update to this post here.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Veronique de Turenne at LA Times “L.A. Now” blog (here and here) wrote mentioning the similarities between Barack Obama’s website and that of for L.A. Councilman Bernard Park’s site for his run for County Supervisor. It goes far beyond merely looking the same - some of the background images are pulled from the Barack Obama site, the code is a complete match, and whoever “adapted” Obama’s site for Parks’ forgot to change one prominent link that takes you to an Obama page.
Compare:

Obama’s site — Parks for Supervisor’s site
Make no mistake about it - the designer knowingly copied Obama’s page.
After reaching out to Parks office for comment, Bernard C. Parks, Jr. replied, “The Parks for Supervisor Campaign hired 2-Way Star, Inc. to do the website. And, we are actively attempting to investigate the allegations.”
I pressed for an answer as to how Parks and his campaign site didn’t notice the similarity between their site and Obama’s, especially considering Parks boasts that he was one of the first people to endorse Obama, and photos of the two together are featured on the site.
Parks, Jr: “Since we were made aware of it, we’ve been trying to make contact with the company. So far we’ve been unsuccessful.”
While Parks, Jr. did give me an email he said was for the designer, he has yet to answer how this designer was chosen, and if the site was paid for. An message sent to the email given for the designer has not been returned.
3 responses so far ↓
California Faultline // May 30, 2008 at 1:52 pm
[...] Parks and Mark Ridley-Thomas for 2nd Dist. Board of Supervisors seat, and more than a week since I wrote about the Parks campaign lifting Barack Obama’s website, and not much has changed. Here’s what updates I do [...]
Campaign Code « Division Street // June 9, 2008 at 1:50 pm
[...] 9, 2008 · No Comments My L.A. counterpart, David Markland, has been writing about the campaign website of Los Angeles councilman Bernard Parks, who is running for county supervisor. Parks’ site [...]
Parks continues to rip off Obama, complains Ridley-Thomas outspent him « California Faultline // June 11, 2008 at 1:58 pm
[...] to have no problem having a website that was copied from Barack Obama’s. (previous coverage here and [...]
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