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Heavy Betting on Election Domains
TBrian Rodgers has no idea why the Bush campaign would let a domain as potentially valuable as Bush2004.com slip out of its grasp.
But since it did, Rodgers, a former resident of President George W. Bush's hometown of Midland, Texas, took the opportunity last fall to snap up the domain, along with identical dot-org and dot-net extensions, for $8,000.
Wireless Hot Spot Director
Since then, Rodgers has received calls from Bush supporters who have offered
to pay as much as $135,000 for the domains. He declined to sell, citing animosity
toward the incumbent president as the chief reason.
"He's a sorry son of a bitch and I'll do anything I can to bring him down," said Rodgers, who now lives outside Austin and is using the domains to house a satire site poking fun at the president.
The fate of Bush2004.com is an oft-repeated example of what happens when politicians neglect to snap up websites containing common variants of their name and election year. While the Bush campaign controls many of the obvious sites, including BushCheney2004.com, GeorgeBush.com, BushforPresident and GeorgeWBush.com -- the official campaign website -- other domains, including GWBush.com and Bush2004, remain in the hands of speculators and satirists.
These days, with campaign season in full swing, speculation in political websites has spawned its own mini industry. Banking on candidates' fears that desirable domains will wind up in the wrong hands, speculators in some cases are buying up domains containing names of prominent politicians even before their electoral intentions are made public.
Since domain names can be registered for less than $10, speculators say it only takes a few good guesses to turn a profit.
"What you really have to be is a prognosticator," said Don Bowman, of Columbus, Ohio, who has bought dozens of domain names in recent years containing names of politicians. This year, he's betting on a long-shot hope that the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, will select Hillary Clinton as his running mate.
"She'd be the best because she would energize the base," Bowman said of Clinton. Such a choice would also bode well for Bowman's personal finances, since he currently owns the domain names KerryClinton.com and KerryHillary.com.
Because most domains containing names of candidates for high-level office are already taken, speculators are wagering heavily on Kerry's potential running mate. Domains containing Kerry's name and the surnames of those believed to be under consideration for the VP post -- including Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Missouri), Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina), Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) -- have already been snapped up.
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Not all domain owners, however, had profiteering in mind when they registered the sites. The website KerryEdwards.com, for example, is actually owned by a man named Kerry Edwards, who registered the site back in 1996.
"Because the domain is my actual name, I really don't care to sell," Edwards said in an e-mail. "But if someone were to offer something in the mid-five-figure range or lease (the domain) for 2 cents a hit, I'm sure that I wouldn't have a problem selling it."
While whoever picks the correct running mate stands to score thousands, most VP-related domains will immediately become worthless.
"I don't think it's money in the bank anymore," said Philip Paturzo, owner of the KerryMcCain.com domain, who gives the staunchly Republican McCain a less than 1-in-20 chance of joining a bipartisan ticket. "It's a long shot."
Kari Chisholm, president of Mandate Media, a firm that specializes in developing Internet strategies for Democratic campaigns, doesn't believe candidates have much to fear from domain-name speculators. Although it's certainly disappointing to find out that a first-choice domain has been taken, candidates can almost always find another perfectly acceptable option.
Still, Chisolm advises candidates to think ahead and register a few of the most obvious variations of their name.
Such preparations can prevent a difficult situation like the one President Bush found himself back in 1999 when his campaign filed a complaint about the parody site GWBush.com with the Federal Election Commission. The FEC eventually dismissed the complaint, which had served in the interim only to drive up traffic to the satire site.
Other domain squatters have linked politicians' names to websites supporting embarrassing and unpopular causes. Perhaps the best-known proponent of this tactic is Jeremy Stamper, a Washington man who registered names of dozens of elected officials in state and federal government. He connected the domains to such sites as the Ku Klux Klan homepage, a website promoting the legalization of cannibalism and a page with instructions on turning breast milk into cheese.
Still, despite the embarrassment that can result from having a site fall into the wrong hands, politicians are often loath to fork over large sums for domains.
When attempting to unload a political domain, Bowman said he's careful not to turn off campaign staffers by quoting prices that are too high. Some of his more successful sales of late include the domain LiebermanForPresident.com, which he sold to the Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) campaign for $500 and the site RenoForGovernor.com, which the Florida campaign of Janet Reno bought for $3,500.
Others demand more. Rodgers, for his part, says he would consider selling Bush2004.com to a Bush opponent for not too much more than he paid. But he won't sell it to Bush supporters for the offer price of $135,000 -- or even twice that.
For now, Rodgers says, Bush supporters can take some comfort (or alarm) in
the fact that many visitors to his satire Web page mistake it for the official
campaign site.
Source: http://www.wired.com/
