Since May of this year, the Republican Party has been promising us a newly redesigned Web site.  Each week, believe it or not, I go online looking for the Republican Party’s response to President Obama’s Weekly Address.

Each week, I come up empty-handed.

Now, the Republican Party is asking your help, publishing a plea for Web designers to get involved and be part of the next generation GOP site.  The link on the Home Page opens a simple form asking your level of expertise: PHP, iPhone, Flash, .NET, Facebook or Blackberry.

Apparently they don’t need anyone with HTML experience.

There is another link where you can “Tell Us What You Think” of their new Web site.

Here’s what I think: The last time the Republican Party published their own GOP Response to the President’s Weekly Address was on February 7, 2009: RNC Chairman Michael Steele Delivers Weekly Republican Address.  The headlines to the stories on the GOP Blog are not linked to the story.  Instead, readers have to search for the tiny “…FULL POST” to read stories.

The most current blog post is still this breaking news from April 30, 2009, “The State of the Website,” with an update from May 15, 2009:

5/15/09 Update: What you see here is a placeholder between what was and what is to come for GOP.com. Don’t get too used to this page–the complete rebuild is around the corner. Soon we’ll have a new look and a more enjoyable, modern, open and participatory way to share our ideals with the Country.

On Friday of last week, we chose a vendor to rebuild our website and digital presence; the two are not the same and the distinction matters—a lot. It matters especially so for us.

The website you see today is difficult to update, hard to use, and locked in a Web 1.0 environment. It is also stale. It is in need of a massive spring clean. To be fair, my predecessor and good friend, Cyrus Krohn, and his team were on the way to changing all of this. Then, we elected a new Chairman, re-grouped, re-staffed and then, finally, we locked & loaded.

The project is underway.

You will soon witness some preliminary changes and, less soon—though, faster than I have ever seen done—you will see the new GOP.com in its entirety. This is where you come in.

I know for some of these guys and gals, the Internet is still a series of tubes, but, dammit, the GOP needs to step up.  In addition to being the party of, “No!” they’re also the party of, “No Useful Web site!”

If the GOP can’t build a simple, working Web site with articles less than three months old, why exactly is anyone listening to them on any issue much more complicated, like the economy, education, global warming, or, heaven forbid, health care reform?