GOP puts mark on new Web era
Republicans hope for community to form around .gop websites
By the end of this
WASHINGTON month, the Republican Party will probably become the first political entity to have its own Web address ending.
The new digital campaigning strategy means individuals will have the ability to register for websites with a .gop suffix instead of . com, .net, .org or other usual domain names.
“You’ll see committees, organizations, grass-roots and state committees using this ending,” said Will Martinez, vice president of sales and marketing for .gop. “Hopefully in the lead-up to 2016 elections, you’ll see the presidential primary playing out on .gop.”
“The goal here is to really make investments and be on top of all of the newest in technology to compete with the Democrats and move up ahead of them,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said.
Examples of likely Republican websites include convention.gop, poll.gop, register.gop and news.gop
The new domains are possible because of a recent Internet expansion in response to online overcrowding and increased competition for Web addresses. By next year, the Internet will have 1,000 more Web endings such as .gay, .nyc and .buzz.
At a “Beyond the Dot” conference on generic top-level domains Wednesday, President Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina said he was “pissed” Democrats hadn’t created their own Web ending. “As a campaign manager, all you want is more tools, and I think this is a really interesting one,” Messina said.
“The goal here is to really make investments and be on top of all of the newest in technology to compete with the Democrats and move up ahead of them.”
Kirsten Kukowski, Republican National Committee spokeswoman
The Democratic Party does not appear to be planning for a .dem domain anytime soon.
“It’s not a strategy. It’s not a solution to a problem,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael Czin said. “Republicans didn’t lose in 2008 or 2012 because people couldn’t find their websites. To the contrary, it’s because people could figure out what they were campaigning on.”
Republicans will have little control over who gets a .gop address. This could have risks for the party, says a longtime Democratic adviser on digital campaigns. “There’s a lot of potential for it to be captured by the farright extremists, which would really hurt Republican branding,” said Alan Rosenblatt, a partner at Turner Strategies, a communication strategy firm.