{"id":782,"date":"2011-04-22T10:40:44","date_gmt":"2011-04-22T14:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=782"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:57:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:57:41","slug":"wild-wild-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/04\/22\/wild-wild-websites\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Wild Websites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Last month, I discussed how the presidential campaign is moving slowly, with no Republican candidates\u00a0formally entering the fray<\/a>.\u00a0 Since then, more potential candidates have formed exploratory committees, but with just nine months remaining before the Iowa Caucuses, there is still not a single official candidate for the nomination.\u00a0 However, the website of one would-be contender reveals a possible reason why some might be waiting.
\n<\/span>
\nTypically, candidates will register the web domain of their name, and use it as a campaign website.\u00a0 Jon Huntsman, however, does not have this option.\u00a0 Huntsman \u2013 the former Utah governor and Ambassador to China \u2013 has emerged as a\u00a0likely presidential candidate<\/a>\u00a0after resigning as Ambassador and returning to the United States.\u00a0 However, rather than a strong campaign message (such as\u00a0Newt Gingrich in front of stock photo<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0T-Paw just being T-Paw<\/a>), if you go to\u00a0jonhuntsman.com<\/a>, you\u2019ll find something unexpected:\u00a0 A letter from Huntsman praising Obama, with a valentine-themed border pushing the attack-from-the-right that Huntsman is too cozy with the Democratic President.\u00a0 What you won\u2019t find on the website is any individual, organization, or campaign taking credit for the attack.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Unlike free social media, in which a campaign might be able to\u00a0work in the shadows<\/a>, hosting a website costs money. A campaign must disclose its ownership of websites, and cannot coordinate with an outside group that might conduct such activities surreptitiously.\u00a0 But with potential candidates still undeclared, they are free to plan with political allies and friendly organizations, carry out secret smears, and disclose nothing.\u00a0 And individual attacks such as Huntman\u2019s website are small in scale compared to what can be done.\u00a0 With outside groups pulling in tens of millions from corporate donors, potential candidates can coordinate and plan full-fledged campaigns to be run independently, then cut the cord, declare a candidacy, and stand back as the outside organizations wreak havoc through negative campaigning without taking any of the blame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque\u00a0 Last month, I discussed how the presidential campaign is moving slowly, with no Republican candidates\u00a0formally entering the fray.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-cC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}