No doubt, a bunch of consultants, strategists, and party hacks got together and thought that a domain name would be the answer to their online woes. Pure top-down, beltway thinking.
Look at what Palin did. She embraced Facebook, was mocked for it. One of the first politicians to effectively use Twitter, her supporters have their own website (C4P) dedicated to her, and Palin just recently signed a deal to do live streaming. Plus she has her TV shows, book deals, and can give speeches.
Ditto with the Tea Party. Grassroots Americans did their own thing, there was no coordination or party elders telling them what to do.
So instead of embracing this and feeding off from it, the Stupid Party decides to shell out thousands to create an Internet domain name. It's the equivalent of purchasing a dial-up ISP.
Speaking of which, this website could embrace new technology and new ways of communicating and so that ad revenue pays for the site instead of subscribers.