Candidates find it's risky to drop rights to campaign Web sites

St. Louis Post Dispatch ^ | Sept 7, 2001 | Jo Mannies

[A Citizen Reporter]

A year ago, then-Sen. John Ashcroft had an official campaign Web site where he espoused his views and his "Missouri Values" theme.

Now, that same site is a portal to a pornographic site that repeatedly blasts raunchy images -- even after the viewer attempts to log off.

[Dan from Michigan]

But the Web site blagojevichforgovernor.org brings up commentary from a supporter of a Republican rival, Patrick O'Malley.

Bwahahahahahahah. Blagojevich is a piece of crap that deserves what he gets.

We did it as well. Mike Duggan, Wayne County prosecutor started an anti-rights group in Michigan opposed to the 2nd amendment and our shall issue conceal carry law. They call themselves "People who care about kids." We registered a couple of the sites.

http://www.pwcak.org
http://www.peoplewhocareaboutkids.net
http://www.peoplewhocareaboutkids.org

That's opposed to their actual site.

[Eugene Tackleberry]

"the usual cost to register a Web site - in effect, controlling it - is $35 to $50 for a two-year period"

Jeez... for a couple hundred dollars the campaigns could just pay to keep the name for years into the future. Don't even have to pay to have web hosting, just keep the name registered. This is just a result of a lack of thinking. The money is inconsequential to an election campaign.

[old-ager]

It's even less than that: anybody can register a single name at dotster.com for $14.95 a year, and if you register a bunch, there are places as low as $8 a year. The "cost" (from the registry) to all of the registrars is $6 per year, as I understand.

[supercat]

But the Web site blagojevichforgovernor.org brings up commentary from a supporter of a Republican rival, Patrick O'Malley.

Probably a waste of time. Anyone who could manage to spell that web site name properly would probably be voting Republican anyway and thus have no interest in a Blagojevich site.

On the other hand, he could have registered blagoyovichforgovernor, blagoyavichforgovernor, blagoyavichforguvner, etc. and possibly gotten some hits.

[gaelwolf]

One of the central issues here is the lack of Internet awareness fo teh vast majority of politicians. Don't believe me? Just take a troll through the official Congressional web sites at www.house.gov...

The REALLY scary part is that these are the people who are going to be deciding how the Internet gets regulated! The poor quality of most of these sites also indicates the level of Internet awareness/skill these people have amongst their staff herds...

[DallasMike]

Hmm, anybody here with time to research such a thing know about the availability of sites like:

www.reno.org
www.renoforgov.com
www.janetrenoforgovernor.org
www.reno2002.org

et cetera?

It would be interesting, to say the least, if these sites were registered and then redirected to Free Rebublic.

Not that I want to give anybody ideas, of course.