Political Campaign - Site Design

We've got 1 week to come up with a design for a conservative southern politician who is getting ready to make major announcement. Feedback on every entry Guaranteed! There is more where this came from!

John Smith for President

Tagline:
Strong Leadership for a Strong State

Desired Color Scheme:
blue, red, white

Desired Style:
"Clean and Professional" ... see description for more complete notes

Accepted File Formats:
layered PSD file.

We are consulting with a conservative NC politician who will be running for a high-level executive office. We need to get him a new web site, and we need your help!

Colors: blue, red, white

Turnaround time: 1 week
(Note: if someone "hits it out of the park" then we reserve the right to close the contest early.)

Sites we like:
http://www.johnmccain.com (maybe a combination of what's on the splash page and what's on the main index page, but not all in black)
http://www.explorehuckabee.com/ (we like the little campaign button icon)
http://www.rickperry.com/ (tabbed issues navigation)
http://www.billgraham2008.com/ (like the photo and "clean" look, although the site should't resemble this one too closely)
Note: if you provide comments with links to other campaign web sites we will provide feedback on what we like or don't like on each and every one!

General look and feel:
Clean, professional. Feel free to get inspiration from other candidate's sites and also various template providers, but the site needs some original elements so that is does not have a "template" look.
A few gradients might add some nice depth.
Would like for a few elements to "break the grid" ... so some items overlapping other items or going "outside the lines"
Rounded corners are nice, too.

Logo:
We aren't running a logo contest, but if you want to submit one that you feel would make the design better, then we will pay separately for that design. For a placeholder you could use the name "John Smith for President" (but no, he isn't running for President ... yet)

Home page should Incorporate:
- Main candidate image (which we'll probably end up rotating out)
- The State Seal of North Carolina
- It may be nice to incorporate some North Carolina images from across the state ... lighthouses, mountains, Raleigh, the outline of the state etc. ... but the main focus should be on the candidate.

Main navigation (should appear listed left to right rather than top to bottom):
News
Issues
About John (not his real name)
Volunteer
Donate
Events/Calendar
Photos
Blog

On the home page we would like a tabbed content area with tabs for each of the main issues (appearing width-wise):
Leadership
Creating Jobs
Border Security
Defending Marriage
Education
Taxes

On the home page we also want to incorporate an area for

Prominent areas:
Email Newsletter Signup
Join the John Smith Team button
Video player with thumbnails for different clips

Other features:
Site Search
Podcast
RSS Feed
Login to "Community" Area

QUESTIONS?
Something we've missed? Ask us and we'll let you know.