Originally published at: Dole-Kemp '96 campaign website finally disappears | Boing Boing
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It now says “ The Dole Kemp 96 Web Site is Presented for Educational Purposes by 4President.org” so it looks like someone else cloned it and is keeping it up for posterity.
Also, “The Dole Agenda” would be a great band name.
Well, we’ll always have Heaven’s Gate…
As out-of-date as the site was, the quality of the candidates it was advertising is even more out of date. That campaign was the last gasp of a Republican ticket that, wrongeaded though it was, still clung to some shreds of reality and responsible governance. After that any GOP presidential campaign was required to have at least one dumb-dumb, Know-Nothing fantasist, and/or kleptocrat running.
An end of an era.
I do remember when Dole name dropped that web site during his closing arguments at the first debate because it was so unusual to hear about a candidate talking about the web back then.
I also remember getting the impression that Dole wasn’t sure what a web site was but was told to mention it by his advisors. He even spelled out the w-w-w-dot part.
Looking at the Wayback Machine, it looks like that label has been there since 2003. In the years prior it looks like domain name squatters were redirecting from it to advertising sites.
That is a somewhat recent IIS error page. That site hasn’t been left on a disused server over the years, it’s been migrated.
That was an amusing era. All the normies on local news and in ads and such were all constantly (and labouriously) saying “aitch aitch tee pee colon backslash backlash double you double you…” and so on. Not only was it silly to read URLs aloud that way, but they always got the direction of the slashes incorrect. The latter in particular drove a certain pedantic young Veronica mad.
2021 appearing to be a grim year for vintage websites, first it was “SpaceJam”, now “Dole/Kemp”. Its interesting to look at the HTML, all the tags that aren’t used anymore.
Apparently, two cult members were instructed to delay ascension to keep the website running for us Luciferians here on Earth, which is why it remains online.
(This is not a joke.)
This never fails to drive me nuts whenever people do this. (Also seeing people casually use “\” as a separator when they clearly mean “/“.)
It’s a forward slash, goddamnit!
Before that too – Remember that, prior to Dole/Kemp, you had these. I’ve highlighted the dumb, know-nothing fantasist in each ticket.
Bush/Quayle
Reagan/Bush (2x)
Ford/Dole (that one has no fanantist fools, though it’s pretty right-wing)
Nixon/Agnew (2x)
Goldwater/Miller
So since in at least 60 years, there have been only 2 Republican tickets who didn’t campaign on either paranoia, idiocy, or explicit racism. And that’s counting Nixon as a “reasonable” leader of the executive branch. Oof.
Viewing Nixon as anything close to what he really was (and what the Republican party is), would mean that the last honestly supportable person on a Republican ticket was Earl Warren in 1948!
(I hate this sort of thing too. I fight back by saying hyphen when spelling out websites or e-mail addresses. People always expect to hear minus and it really puts them off their stride.)
There’s the hyphen, the en-dash, the em-dash, and of course the 100 meter dash.
Really, try saying Bindestrich and watch people stumble mentally.
I can remember all too well hearing “hah tay tay pay Doppelpunkt Schrägstrich Schrägstrich vay vay vay Punkt tay Bindestrich Online Punkt day eh” and such. Or the someone saying their address was “Fred, dann Punkt, dann Müller mit UE, dann Klammeraffe Gay Emm Ex Punkt Day Eh.”