December 9, 2008

Capitalize on Obamania: Obama-Biden Domains Available on eBay

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In August of this year, an entrepreneurial webbie bought up a slew of domain names potentially of use to the Obama-Biden ticket (or its enemies) and tried selling them for $100,000. Looks like business wasn’t so good, because three of the most useful domains — obamabiden.org, obama-biden.com, and obama-biden.org — are available on eBay now for the greatly reduced price of $1,000. GoDaddy.com and WhoIs.com do not make it clear if the same person was behind both sales.

For Obama, that thousand bucks is loose change, isn’t it? Surely he can snag these three URLs before right-wingers arguing that Obama isn’t a natural-born citizen make one of them the hub for eight years of conspiracy theories and rumor-mongering?

obama-biden-web.jpg

If you’ve got someone on your holiday wish list who would like a little piece of Obama web history, you can buy the domains at this eBay auction. You’ve got roughly 5 days. So far, no bids.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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