I saw in another diary a link to this site, www.Regestersitego.com, and thought it would be interesting to see who has been registering potential presidential candidates in 2008.
Below the jump are what I found when just researching the Republican candidates and I found some very interesting information.
1. Chuck Hagel - hagel2008.com was registered by Kevin Chapman, an aide who works for Sandhills PAC.
Sandhills PAC is Hagel's "Leadership" PAC.
Others are owned by web squatters, those who buy these and sell them for a profit
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2. Rick Santorum - Our favorite candidate is trying to hide what he has bought. Santorum2008.com was registered by New Media Communications. These are the folks who brought you the web site for Bush/Cheney '04, Thune for Senate, Vitter for Senate and others. A through and through Republican company. There is no name attached to the website, like Hagel's aide, but the sign is still clear.
Ricksantorum2008.com was also bought by this group.
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3. Mitt Romney- My homeboy (in the sense that he is my governor) has been less interesting.
The only interesting piece is that Mittromney2008.com is owned by a woman, who when I searched her name, wrote a piece about her experience in the International Church of Christ, apparently a large cult group.
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4. Bill Frist is going to have to shell out money for his sites. billfrist2008, billfrist08, fristforpresident, frist2008, and frist08 are all taken by squatters.
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5. Jeb Bush may have vowed not to run again, but it hasnt stopped some pre-emptive buying.
A man in Virginia, whos homepage is full of praise for Bush and Jerry Kilgore, the republican candidate in Virginia, has registered bush2008.com. I hope that he means Jeb.
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6. George Allen - His sites are mainly owned by the squatters that bought many others. But when I looked up georgeallenforpresident.com, it had been bought through a third party...so the name would not be displayed.
Hmmmmm
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So Santorum and Hagel look the most active here and we should continue to watch these.
The rest, Giulani, McCain, Owens...seem to have no movement.
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But this all leads me to a question for all of you. Presumably, these squatters sell to the highest bidder.
Would it be worth the effort for Dkos to sponsor a little bidding on some of the sites?
We have proven to be good fundraisers and we could screw with the nominees. We don't even have to win the bidding, we could just make the repubs campaign spend more for the site and thus less on the rest of the campaign.