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Lautenberg Challenger Rob Andrews (D-NJ) Gets Hit by His Own Domain Name |
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I was on my Gmail when I noticed one of the side ads was for www.robandrews2008.com — and as Andrews just startled the New Jersey Democratic Party to announce that he would be challenging incumbent Senator Frank Lautenberg in the primary, I was surprised he would have a website up so quickly. So I clicked the link — go ahead do it now and then come back: www.robandrews2008.com
Are you surprised? Just one page that is obviously a hit job on Andrews, though not necessarily unfair. I looked up the domain name under whois and while we can see it was registered on April 1st, right after Andrews announced his intentions, the actual ownership of the domain name is concealed. We don’t know if it is the Lautenberg campaign directly (though I doubt it since some of the spending in terms of ads would then have to show up on an FEC disclosure report) — or if it is some random supporter, a PAC, a political group or something else. But it does indicate that this could be a messy primary. And it is impressive how quickly it was created and put up on Google Ads.
The lesson here, boys and girls? If you ever want to surprise people and announce that you are going to challenge an incumbent in a primary, make sure you have already bought up all the significant domain names related to your campaign.
For transparency’s sake, this disclosure — Many years ago I was briefly a Legislative Fellow in Senator Lautenberg’s office
