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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL / CALIFORNIA
Web Sites Prove That Politicians Do Buy Voters
By Ryan Tate

08/11/1999
The Wall Street Journal
CA3
(Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Cynics have long grumbled that the Democratic and Republican parties are interchangeable. And judging from their Web sites, they are.

The smiling faces that greet visitors to California Democratic and Republican Web sites aren't political idealists, lending their time and visage to the never-ending war between the Donkey and the Elephant. Instead, they're images taken from a stock photo collection -- the same stock photo collection.

Either unwilling -- or unable -- to get any of the state's 6,939,917 registered Democrats to hold still, the Assembly Democratic Caucus bought a volume from the PhotoDisc Image Library when launching its Web site in March 1998. A year later, the California Republican Party was equally unsuccessful in finding models among its 5,238,917 members; for its site, the GOP turned to the same digital scrapbook.

At least they're using different PhotoDisc volumes, which cost $299 apiece; the Democrats elected "Everyday People," while the Republicans clicked with "Technoculture and Urban Life."

Both parties have their reasons. Assembly aide Luke Breit says Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D., Los Angeles) "told us he wanted to make sure there was a good representation of the various ethnicities of Californians." But he concedes that "nobody checked to see if they were actually Californians" -- a reasonable question, since the disk's producer is based in Seattle.

"In today's Web society, I think people understand that you use stock images," adds Stuart Deveaux, a spokesman for the state GOP. "If I'm watching TV, and I see some guy who says `Crest is the best for me,' I know he's not necessarily . . . a customer."

Since March, of course, there has been a third party in the statehouse, and on this issue, the Greens have a different perspective. The party's Web site features a photo of 67 confirmed members at a gathering in Santa Ana. "There will be no stock photos on our pages," says Pamela Rasada, an aide to Assemblywoman Audie Bock (G., Oakland). "Unless it's of our stock."