Monday, December 24, 2007 - Posts
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Are Bill and Hillary in a lover’s spat? A visit to presidentbillclinton.com or williamclinton.com redirects right to Barack Obama’s homepage. This is the same Obama that Bill Clinton hasn’t been too fond of recently. We’ve heard rumors of dissention within the Clinton ranks, but has it really gotten this bad?
No. Those Clinton domains were registered in 1998 by Joseph Culligan, a private investigator and part-time domain squatter based in Miami. Last week, after ABC News discovered Clinton was readying an Obama attack site, Culligan was inspired to drum up publicity for his own private investigation Web site, webofdeception.com. He redirected the Clinton domains, which had lay dormant for years, to Obama’s site, hoping that somebody would take the bait.
Well, it worked. Wonkette published a post on the redirects today, which piqued our interest on an unsurprisingly slow news day. I tracked the domains back to Culligan, who also owns domains based on the names of Barack Obama and Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary’s campaign manager.
Domain-name trickery is nothing new on the Internet. Just last week somebody tried to convince journalists that Hillary Clinton registered BarackOsama2008.org. But Culligan’s antics are an avoidable headache for the Clinton camp. Culligan says he doesn't hold any animosity toward the Clintons and that 42 “was a great president.” (He wouldn't say which candidate, Democrat or Republican, he supports.) He has offered to give Clinton the domains every year since '98, free of charge, but he’s never heard a response. “When Clinton is ready for his name, I’m ready to give it back."
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John Edwards found himself ensnared in a catch-22 this weekend. Barack Obama, who has repeatedly targeted Edwards over the past week, began suggesting Edwards was a hypocrite for not controlling a 527 group that was readying a pro-Edwards TV ad in Iowa.
527 groups create a sticky situation for Edwards. The independent advocacy organizations are not officially allied with a campaign, but they bring to mind the shadowy world of special interest groups. Edwards, meanwhile, has wagered much of his candidacy on the assumption that America wants to rid Washington of lobbyists’ influence. When Obama starts using such strong rhetoric, nuances between 527s and special interest groups begin to disappear in voters’ eyes. In the caucus crunch, nobody has time to call a spade a spade. A shovel will do just fine.
By going after Edwards, Obama’s campaign manages to twist a negative into a positive. There haven’t been any 527 groups that have come out in support of Obama, which would usually mean that his official campaign would have to do more legwork on the ground and over the air. But—mainly thanks to Edwards—ethics have long been an issue in the Democratic race, which means there is room for Obama to take the high ground on the 527 issue. In the new battle for second-choice votes, Obama has discovered an opportunity to compete with Edwards for ethics-minded Iowans. He’s a victor of circumstance.
After Obama fired his salvo, Edwards released a statement asking the 527 group not to air the ad. Legally, candidates aren’t allowed to communicate with 527s, so Edwards’ request is tantamount to him asking for a favor. But the 527 in question is led by Edwards’ former campaign manager. So now, based on the twisted logic of 527s, it may look even more suspicious if the group doesn’t air the ad. Edwards may stand to benefit from politics-as-usual even as he continues to promise their demise.
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