Attack of the Parody Campaign Sites: Protecting a Candidate’s Online Identity

Given that voters frequently turn to the Internet for political information, a strong Web presence is a must for high-profile candidates and can be a boost to local campaigns as well. However, increasingly common mock campaign websites, which appear to be associated with a candidate but are actually designed to undermine them, pose a new hurdle to online branding and messaging.
 
A number of these sites have recently received press attention. Perhaps chief among them is www.jonhuntsman.com, whose URL could easily lead one to believe that it is the official site of likely presidential candidate and former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman. The site, apparently aimed at Republican primary voters, prominently features a (genuine) handwritten note from Huntsman to President Obama thanking him for the ambassadorial appointment and praising the president’s leadership skills. In case you missed the point, the note is ringed with pink hearts.
 
Jane Corwin, the Republican candidate in last week’s special election in New York 26th congressional district, had to contend with the opposition site www.janecorwin.org. At first glance, the site looks official, but a closer perusal reveals a vicious parody of Corwin’s positions, illustrated with mocking photos of her from the campaign trail.
 
The mock site is becoming extremely common. Tim Kaine, the former Democratic National Committee chair and 2012 Virginia Senate candidate, must contend with www.timkaine.com, which redirects visitors to the “Join Us” page of the Communist Party of the United States. For his part, former House Speaker and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is saddled with the farcical www.gingrich2012.org, which features faux-supportive (though grammatically challenged) statements such as: “Americans are tired of seeing billionaires forced to share their some of their money with the poor and middle classes [sic].” And, while he was running for mayor of Chicago earlier this year, Rahm Emanuel was parodied on Twitter by a foul-mouthed impersonator who received significant press attention.  
 
Candidates in earlier cycles have, of course, been subjected to online mockery as well. In 2008, presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson were all discussed in online forums in which “supporters” posted spoof positioning statements. The Republican National Committee even got into the game in 2008, creating the site BarackBook.com, which highlighted then-candidate Obama’s friendship with former Weather Underground organizer Bill Ayers and indicted developer Tony Rezko. The underlying principle of the mock site is to undermine the candidate by posing as a supporter while promoting positions, supposedly also espoused by the candidate, that are far outside the mainstream.
 
Brian Hanf, president of Trail Blazer, a nonpartisan website and political database management firm, says that the best defense against parody sites is a good offense. “If you are thinking about running for office, go out and purchase as many domains and URLs as you can,” he says. “When new technology comes out, like Twitter or Facebook, make sure you get out there early.”
 
Kurt Luidhardt, vice president of the Republican online strategy firm the Prosper Group, agrees that early domain registry is the best way to protect one’s brand and identity. “In the past, I’ve bought thirty to fifty domains, including misspellings if you have a hard-to-pronounce last name,” he says. “[Domain names] are cheap; you can buy them for about ten dollars apiece.” Luidhardt suggests buying every version of the candidate’s name with every extension (.org, .com, .tv, .us, .asia, etc.) as well as common monikers and phrases, like huntsmanforpresident.com, huntsman4president.com, and therealjonhuntsman.com.
 
On the other hand, if you are looking to parody an opponent, Luidhardt points to the Corwin and Huntsman parody sites as the model. The Tim Kaine redirected URL is not nearly as effective, he says, dismissing it as a “schoolyard prank.” “I don’t think it does anything against Tim Kaine,” says Luidhardt. Furthermore, Luidhardt suggests registering parody domains through a proxy-registration service located abroad in order to secure confidentiality—jonhuntsman.org, for instance, is registered in Quebec.
 
Once a campaign is targeted by a parody site, there is not much that can be done about it. Both Luidhardt and Hanf suggest that the best option is to ignore it; any attempt to have a site taken down or acquire its license will only bring more attention to the parody. “Getting the name back would probably put a bad taste in people’s minds,” says Hanf, adding that doing so would highlight the campaign’s lack of preparedness in failing to acquire relevant domain names prior to the campaign.
 
In addition, Hanf says, taking legal action to take over a URL can open the candidate up to accusations of hypocrisy. In any case, it is next to impossible to win control of a URL that is being actively used by another party. Hanf cites one high-profile case in which the recording artist Madonna was able to win possession of www.madonna.com, which was capitalizing on her name to serve pornography—an extraordinary set of circumstances.
 Noah Rothman is the online editor at C&E. E-mail him at nrothman@campaignsandelections.com