In our previous installment, I went digging through WHOIS to determine the availability of domains calling for the impeachment of 2008’s crop of presidential contenders. It may be too early to consider any of them locks for their respective party nominations, but it turned out that it’s not too late to plan for their removal from office.
I’m not sure these observations are worth much, but obviously I believe they are worth a blog post:
- According to the available information, it appears that none of these domains were registered prior to 2003 and most were snapped up in just the last year, which suggests that all the the resgistered domains in fact refer to the each candidate, and not say, other people named Clark or Paul. This seems to be true even of ImpeachKerry.com and ImpeachKerry.org, but it is also possible they were previously maintained through another registrar.
- The biggest category of registrations are those with no identifiable owner: They are controlled through private registration intermediaries Domains by Proxy and the more obscure Domain Discreet of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. These include all the Edwards sites save one, ImpeachHillary.org and ImpeachHillary.net, ImpeachKerry.com and ImpeachKerry.org, ImpeachBrownback.com and — for some reason — ImpeachPaul.com.
- Which campaigns might have secured some of these domains? I found no smoking gun evidence, but if any, most likely John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. The registration of three Edwards-related domains through Domain Discreet — on different days but within two weeks of each other last December — is at least chin-stroke worthy. The .org, however, was registered 10 months earlier and through Domains by Proxy. If any one candidate is most likely to be hoarding domains, it’s Edwards — but that isn’t saying much. Clinton knows a thing or two about impeachment, but that’s about it.
- The identifiable registrants for Hillary Clinton’s sites are split among three individuals. I attempted to contact each, but as yet none have replied. Norman Livingston of Boynton Beach, FL owns ImpeachHillary.biz, but he seems to be un-Googleable. Michael Miller of Cincinnati owns ImpeachHillary.info, and there is an outside chance he is Republican lawyer and former Franklin County Prosecutor Michael Miller, although it would be quite a commute to Columbus. ImpeachHillary.com — the one domain which could conceivably fetch twenty-five large in a future online auction, belongs to another Miller: Mark L. Miller, a San Diego attorney and family man — apparently neither the Republican money man nor the Kentucky state police commish.
- Meanwhile, Obama sites are like potato chips — you can’t have just one. In late December, Michael Meder of Emeryville, CA helped himself to .net and .org. Then a few days after Obama’s announcement, Robert McKee of Austin, TX picked up .us and .info.
- The exception is ImpeachObama.com, which was registered to an entity called Registered to Protect From Squatters on July 15, 2004 — two weeks before Obama delivered his famous convention speech. The constitutional visionary here goes by the name DomainGoon, and he’s a pro, controlling ImpeachGilmore.com, ImpeachBiden.com and ImpeachVilsack.com as Script Registrations. (He — really, what woman would call herself “goon” anything? — maintains other prized domains, such as abughraib.com, registered two days after the April 2004 “60 Minutes II” report.) I believe it’s fair to credit him with ImpeachClark.com and ImpeachPataki.com — those are owned by a company called Sunlane Media LLC, which shares the same Encinitas, CA address and contact information as Script Registrations. Most of these were registered in the second half of 2006, but ImpeachBiden.com was picked up in December 2004, the day after Biden told Don Imus: “I’m going to proceed as if I’m going to run.” And ImpeachClark.com was registered Sept. 11, 2003, the week before Clark threw his hat into the ring the last time. The guy is good.
- John Wall of Cincinnati ties with DomainGoon for the most impeachment domains, but has the clear edge in both candidate and TLD prestige: ImpeachMcCain.com, ImpeachRomney.com, ImpeachRichardson.com, ImpeachGiuliani.com, ImpeachGingrich.com and ImpeachGingrich.net. All but Romney were registered on June 19, 2005 — the exception was registered on the surprisingly late date of December 2006.
- ImpeachBiden.org belongs to someone named Daniel Cook of Chicago, who has owned it since November 2005. According to Amazon’s social network 43 Things, Cook or someone with the same “cookforpresident” handle wants to “have sex a lot,” “have sex today,” and “have sex eight times in one day.” As yet (if 43 Things is up to date) he has accomplished none of these things. Just saying. Also, I don’t know which Cook is being referred to, but my money is on Dane Cook. Which would explain a lot, but not the interest in Joe Biden.
- Mini-tycoons include Joseph Culligan of Miami, FL (ImpeachMcCain.org, ImpeachMcCain.net) Charles Wallace of Spokane, WA (ImpeachKucinich.com, ImpeachEdwards.us) and Barney Schlacks of St. Louis, MO (ImpeachRomney.net, ImpeachGiuliani.net).
- None of the sites are earnestly in opposition to the candidates named, most of the domains lead to parked pages with ad links and some don’t load at all, but there are some unusual ones.
- ImpeachClark.com, oddly enough, leads to Hated.com, which seems like the political version of a parked domain — it’s a guide to a number of popular liberal sites such as BartCop and Raw Story, but only links one true blog: Bill Scher’s Liberal Oasis.
- ImpeachMcCain.com features apparently-original text previewing McCain’s ‘08 bid, and almost feels like a tribute site — with a photo gallery! — but also features conspicuous Adsense and makes sure to quote McCain’s infamous Chelsea Clinton joke.
- ImpeachGingrich.com and .net both redirect to AboutEating.com, the website of a culinary celebrity in Wall’s hometown of Cincinnati.
And that’s about all I found. If I’ve missed anything important, let’s hear it in the comments.
