Rand Paul hands over $100,000 for website domain

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) learned a $100,000 lesson: If you're in the public eye — especially as a politician running for president — you need to snag every single .com, .org, .whatever associated with your name.

In March, a month before Paul formally announced he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, his Senate re-election campaign paid $100,000 to a third-party firm for the domain randpaul.com, the Los Angeles Times reports. While the site at one time was run by supporters of Paul, no one is sure who owned it at the time of the hefty payment. Two of Paul's GOP comrades made the same mistake of not securing their own domains, and they are now dealing with some online embarrassment: carlyfiorina.org shows 30,000 sad faces, representing the number of people laid off at Hewlett Packard while Carly Fiorina was chief executive, while tedcruz.com sports the decidedly non-Ted Cruz message "Support President Obama. Immigration reform now!"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.