Monday, November 22, 2010

Are you master of your domain? (No, because I own it.)

February 2015 Update: This list is out of date. It's missing, for example, most of my Clinton domains.

July 2012 Update: I just ordered a buttload of domains for the 2016 cycle.

Last August, before the midterm elections had even happened, I caught PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FEVER and became so impatient that I bought 50 political website domains to get ready for 2012 and 2016.

These domains have two intended purposes:
1) To make fun of politicians.
2) To make money from politicians.

Some of them are a candidate's name plus a year and some are two candidates' last names put together in anticipation of possible national tickets. In 2004, a man named Kerry Edwards who owned the domain KERRYEDWARDS.COM was offered $150,000 for the domain, or at least that's the highest offer I know of.

I probably won't get the right combination though. The most obvious ones were taken. For example, everything I wanted that starts with Romney was taken. Romney, who is overwhelmingly competent, charismatic, and rich, is very likely to win the nomination. Fortunately if that happens I have plenty of autographed baseballs and books. Most of the less obvious ones were taken as well.

Not all of these are .com's, and many of them have hyphens in them. Will these scrub domains have been worth it? I don't know. That might depend on how high I can get search engines to rank them. Already the ones that start with Jindal are worthless for 2012 because of the Sherman statement he recently issued, though they're still valid for 2016.

A couple of them are deliberate typos that I think people might commonly make, like Bloomburg and Palenty.

Here's the list, alphabetized for your convenience:

ANDREW2016.COM
BACHMAN-2012.COM
BACHMANNBAYH.COM
BACHMANNBUSH.COM
BACHMANNDANIELS.COM
BACHMANNFORTUNO.COM
BACHMANNHUNTSMAN.COM
BACHMANNJINDAL.COM
BACHMANNMCDONNELL.COM
BACHMANNPAWLENTY.COM
BACHMANNROMNEY.COM
BACHMANNRUBIO.COM
BAYH2012.COM
BIDEN-CLINTON.COM
BIDENCLINTON.NET
BLOOMBURG2012.COM
BLOOMBURG2016.COM
BUSHBACHMANN.COM
BUSHBAYH.COM
BUSHBROWN.COM
BUSHCAIN.COM
BUSHFORTUNO.COM
BUSHMCDONNELL.COM
BUSHROMNEY.COM
BUSHTHUNE.COM
CAINBUSH.COM
CAINFORTUNO.COM
CAINJINDAL.COM
CAINTHUNE.COM
CHRISTIEBAYH.COM
CHRISTIEFORTUNO.COM
CHRISTIEHUCKABEE.COM
CHRISTIEHUNTSMAN.COM
CHRISTIETHUNE.COM
CLINTONBIDEN.COM
DANIELS-2012.COM
DANIELS-JINDAL.COM
DANIELSBUSH.COM
DEMINT2012.NET
GINGRICH-2012.NET
GINGRICHPOWELL.COM
HUCKABEE-DANIELS.COM
HUCKABEEBAYH.COM
HUNTSMAN2012.US
HUNTSMANFORTUNO.COM
HUNTSMANJINDEL.COM
JINDAL-2012.NET
JINDAL-BROWN.COM
JINDALPENCE.COM
JINDALROMNEY.COM
JINDALTHUNE.COM
JINDEL2012.COM
JOE2016.COM
KUCINICH2016.COM
MARTIN2016.COM
NADER2016.COM
OBAMA-CLINTON.NET
PAWLENTY-THUNE.COM
PAWLENTYBAYH.COM
PAWLENTYBUSH.COM
PAWLENTYCAIN.COM
PAWLENTYFORTUNO.COM
PENCE-2012.COM
PENCEBUSH.COM
PENCEDANIELS.COM
PENCEHUCKABEE.COM
PENCEROMNEY.COM
PENCERYAN.COM
PENCETHUNE.COM
PERRY-2012.COM
PERRYBUSH.COM
PERRYFORTUNO.COM
ROMNEYAYOTTE.NET
ROMNEYBAYH.COM
ROMNEYFORTUNO.COM
ROMNEYHUCKABEE.NET
ROMNEYPALENTY.COM
ROMNEYPAWLENTY.NET
ROMNEYPOWELL.COM
ROMNEYTHUNE.NET
RYAN-2012.COM
RYANBAYH.COM
RYANFORTUNO.COM
RYANJINDAL.COM
RYANPAWLENTY.COM
RYANROMNEY.COM
RYANTHUNE.COM
SANTORUM-2012.COM
SANTORUMRICE.COM
THUNE-HUCKABEE.COM
THUNE-PAWLENTY.COM
THUNE-ROMNEY.COM
THUNEBAYH.COM
THUNECAIN.COM
THUNEPAWLENTY.COM
THUNEROMNEY.NET


Update: More domains have been added to this list as I've acquired them.

The "Bush" doesn't refer to George W. Bush, of course, but to Jeb Bush. Though maybe the Republicans will rally H. W. to run and then get him to pick a terrifyingly conservative vice presidential candidate to later take over for him, who knows?

You may have noticed there's no Palin. I've been to enough Republican events to know how polarizing she is even within her own party. Her name usually gets a lot of boos when mentioned. I don't think she'll win the nomination. No, all my Palin money is wagered on her merely announcing her candidacy, at political futures investing site Intrade.com.

Most of these domains just have ads up right now, but I'll turn many of them into parody sites that make fun of these candidates. Ideally I'll piss somebody off enough that he'll want to pay me to hand his unofficial website over, but even if that doesn't happen, making fun of politicians for its own sake is good enough.

One of the exceptions is Martin2016.com, which I'd gladly donate to Martin O'Malley's campaign if he decided to run.

If you don't understand this picture, google "santorum."

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Noam Chomsky on Comedy Politics

Whether you agree with Noam Chomsky's opinions or not, he's a brilliant and pretty awesome person. He's also fantastic about responding to emails and has been answering my questions since I was in high school. Here is his response to an email I sent him about the election in Iceland and comedy politics, the almost non-existent field that I want to go into and wrote my law school personal statements about, in general:

"Well, it's an old tradition.  In the feudal courts, the only people with brains were the jesters -- and they were given some leeway.  Same in totalitarian states.  Satirists were given some room, and used it well." 


There's one more citation to one of the most cited people in the history of humanity, on maybe one of the least remarked about fields, with his permission.