That screenshot conveniently cuts off the part right under the donate button, which reads, in large text: “Fed up with Ann Kirkpatrick? - Sign up Today”.
Large text, but the “DONATE” is 2-3 times larger.
Politicians seem to think all bets are off during elections and they can be utter douches. Like when Al Gore robocalled me.
Oh well then. Ambiguity makes fraud okay.
This would be the GOP’s stance:
“You’d have to be completely thoughtless and not read one sentence of the site’s text to think that you were actually donating to Ann Kirkpatrick. If someone were quite old and/or had quite bad eyesight, I’m sure it’s possible to mistakenly donate.”
It’s actually a brilliant (and fucking evil) tactic. If the site weren’t up, they’d get $0. With it up, they get a figure, greater than $0, from all the Democratic donors with bad eyesight. They profit and they divert money that would be going to their political enemies.
This is much more obvious with a website name like: contribute.sheaporterforcongress.com
How’s that lack of advertising standards working out for Uhmerica?
A particular demographic of older people tend to have older computers with lower resolution which would also cut off the “Fed up line” from their browser window. The same people who would have trouble reading the fine print are most likely not to see the tagline under the donate button That’s not an accident.
If the site were a straightforward, honest anti- Ann Kirkpatrick effort, they would lead with a line in the same large print they put her name or donate in. They wouldn’t have a site that looks like a support site until you read the fine print. Everything about this is set up for trickery to the point of plausible deniability. There is nothing in honest good faith here.
“I suckered you fair and square” may sometimes work legally. That doesn’t make it ethical though. Nothing is more revealing of the lawful evil or lawful neutral mindset then edging up as close to illegality as possible and then insisting there’s nothing to complain about.
Anyone who falls for this trick should have their name stricken from the voter roll.
Anyone who launches this trick should have their name stricken from the voter roll.
Murica got rid of many reasons to disenfranchise people who other people thought didn’t measure up a while ago. But the GOP is working hard to bring back testing voters, more cumbersome proof of residency rules, making certain misdemeanor convictions (stuff you might be charged with while protesting) make you ineligible to vote.
I’m sure they need more manpower to get these things happening if you want to sign up. If all you have is womanpower they might let you get the manpower’s coffee unless you can put on a good show like a Bachmann or a Coulter.
Haha, j/k j/k sorta 
Even before this particular information came to light, my wife and I donated to Kirkpatrick’s campaign, even though she’s not in our district. We donated because of the flood of ugly and dishonest anti-Kirkpatrick ads being put on the air. We figured that she deserved our support, because she has all the right enemies.
You must account for the development costs, too. At a guess, a couple of hundred bucks per site. SSL cert, database wrangling for the mailing list sign-up… Given that there are at least 16 of these, the first one that went up got enough donations to offset the investment.
Just imagine the squidcloud of butthurt if someone did this to a Republican.
Well then it would be illegal…and immoral…and Communist.
Those examples appear to be missing something important: the possibility of fooling the visitor into donating to someone they don’t mean to.
You seem to be a tad hazy on the distinction between “parody” and “maybe-barely-legal-if-you-squint-just-right fraud.”
Unless, of course, Republican voters really do go for campaign slogans like “Moving Wisconsin Backwards.”
Like this: http://walker2014.com/I encourage you to actually follow your own link, and make the comparison.
Yes: the people behind “walker2014.com” are antagonists of Scott Walker, and the site is dedicated to denigrating him. It’s one of several sites with similar aspirations and similarly misleading names.
But:
- “walker2014.com” is produced by something calling itself “wake up and Smell the Coffee Wisconsin”. I don’t know who these people are - but a quick Google doesn’t turn up claims that they’re the DNC, as the Kirkpatrick site was produced by the RNC.
- The site is considerably less misleading - there is a donate button, but it’s tiny and in a corner, unlike the button on the Kirkpatrick page.
- Much, much more importantly, the “Donate” button is not an attempt to defraud the credulous of their money. If you click on it, you get a page saying they don’t need donations, and recommending you send some cash to apolitical charities such as animal shelters or the Salvation Army. At the Kirkpatrick site, clicking “Donate” would set you up to fund Kirkpatrick’s enemies, before you even noticed the switch.
So: Yes, you found an anti-Republican site that squats the Republican’s name for a URL and is slightly satirical in its presentation. Every important detail is completely different.
But: thanks for playing! Next time, put a little effort into your research!
