The NRA's website, which organizingforaction.net redirects to.
Rachel noted on the show on Monday that Organizing for Action sent out a message to supporters, urging them to contact members of Congress to express support for new gun laws. The problem: OFA's email arrived in inboxes late on a Friday afternoon, which tends to be an awful time to call Capitol Hill.
If that was a mild misstep, this is worse.
Derek Bovard, a 40-year-old computer technician in Castle Rock, Colo., was up watching Fox News early the morning of Jan. 18 when he saw the news that President Obama's advisors were launching a new advocacy group called Organizing for Action.
Bovard jumped on the computer and snapped up the domain name Organizingforaction.net. He then proceeded to configure the site so all hits are directed to the website for the National Rifle Assn..... Bovard, who paid about $10 to register the site, said he'd sell it for "somewhere around $10,000." [...]
Organizingforaction.com and Organizingforaction.org were both scooped up on Jan. 18 by Michael Deutsch, a registered Republican who lives in Wellington, Fla.
When Rachel asked Bill Burton about OFA's early missteps, he responded that the organization is led by "some of the smartest minds in politics who are over there putting this together."
That may very well be true, but it doesn't negate these early growing pains.
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I take it OFA doesn't have an IT staff or an attorney familar with the internet? Me thinks the Republicans will gain in the mid-terms once again.
Growing pains? Messina face planting like this at the start of the race?
Seriously? Not nailing down the domain name is "growing pains"?????
The name of the Organisation is dictated by availability of the domain name.
This is like 21st century 101 how do you fail at stupid crap like this?
33.3 rpm Party in a 4GHz world, I swear...
OFA = Obviously Former Acorn employees.
I don't know where Rachel was coming from with this "early missteps" story. I have been receiving my OFA material and I haven't seen any missteps. It is almost as if someone from the FoxNews group infiltrated the RMS to plant a story like this.
They may be the "smartest minds in politics" but they clearly aren't the sharpest minds around basic organizational strategies and requirements in the 21st century.
No, they are the smartest minds in politics and if you have any clue of the actual organizational capacity of OFA, you'd realize just how off the mark you are. Sorry, but it's the truth.
Yes this was a screw up, but hardly worth a footnote given what OFA has accomplished in reshaping the dynamics of politics in the 21st century.
Looks like a little arrogance/complancy set in after winning the campaign.
Looks like a FoxNews planted story going on.
With friends like these, we don't need many enemies. What a bunch of tools.
Okay, well and good, but I doubt OFA was planning on making those looking for their site type in a long URL like "organizingforaction.com" in any case. But a bit of thorn-poking by Rachel into their side is probably not a bad thing.
It does Rachel no good when she jumps on a story that is perniciously ludicrous.
Bill Burton should be fired for being both incompetent and in denial of his incompetence.
Yeah, I'm sure visiting GoDaddy and securing the domain was Burton's responsibility. BTW, have you forgotten that Burton led the strategy to get the ads out there early defining Romney as an out of touch, awkward, and uncaring plutocrat.
That strategy paid off big and if you were involved in this last election, you know how enormous a role that played in the election.
Is the failure to secure the domain your only beef, or do you have something else against Bill Burton?
Rename it Reorganizing for action and get the damned domain name first
They also won't be able to use www.ofa.com ("One For All"--Universal Electronics), www.ofa.net (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals), or www.ofa.org (Association of Horticulture Professionals).
Way to go, folks.
Before we get our full-on circular firing squad going, may I suggest everyone take a look at where OFA's website is located -- makes sense, given their mission.
Never underestimate how low a nutjob will go.
Technically, Mr. Bovard can't sell it for more than he paid for it without breaking the law. According to the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, he can't buy a domain name related to a trademark, and then sell that domain for profit. It even more clearly becomes cyber-squatting because he redirected to the NRA, a group opposed to OFA. Any half way competent lawyer should be able to get a court to force him to sell it for the same amount he paid for it.
came to post this same comment. openly saying he'd sell it for $10,000 doesn't help his case either, I don't think.
You know, I just have to vent here.
Dr. Maddow is extremely smart, but at times can be too clever. I saw her recent show where she fixated on the time that the initial OFA email was sent out without taking into consideration that OFA has time and again stated that they do various testings of release times/subject wording/message wording, etc. to find out what works best -- which they did to razor-sharp effect for the 2012 election. (And I did actually see that Fri., afternoon email -- Saturday morning, it was near the top of my Inbox queue as I was sorting emails, which I usually do on the weekends because I have the extra time to do it. So, the email did actually get opened and eyeballs on it in my case).
But anyway, all it took for me to find OFA's official website was a little Googling, and clicking on "External links" in their Wiki profile. The actual title of this blog post should have been "Never underestimate how low a nutjob will go" as Paul posted upthread - not "OFA Stumbles...." as their official website is already up and running seamlessly from its previous iteration as Organizing for America. Now, yes, it can be debated whether "BarackObama.com" is still the best home for them, but as 'mpguy' helpfully pointed out, most iterations of "ofa.anything" have long been taken, and since Organizing For Action is Organizing for America 2.0, it makes even more sense that they've stayed at their home at BarackObama.com.
Nobody's perfect, but can we please not let these right-wing 'nutjobs' play us into cutting our own off at the knees?
Or, maybe just maybe, it's a brilliant earned media strategy! Look how much coverage it got.
Wow. Watching Rachel tonight, and for the first time ever (and have followed Rachel since her Air America days) I have to call bullpuckey on her.
The OFA email nowhere says, call your representatives "immediately!" as Rachel just claimed. Here's the email - I believe this is the same one:
June --
I hope you saw Vice President Joe Biden's email this morning.
In order to protect our children and our communities by reducing gun violence, he and President Obama need your help. The most important steps we can take will require congressional action. And Congress will only act if we all raise our voices to demand it.
June, your voice in this couldn't be more important. Tell your members of Congress that you want to see decisive action on this issue.
Give them a call, let them know you support the President's plan, ask if your members of Congress are on board, then make sure you report back on the conversation.
It doesn't take long. According to our records, here's who you should call:
If that doesn't look right, call the switchboard operator at 202-224-3121. If you're not sure who your members are, look up your representative here and your senators here.
Secondly, Rachel repeated the OFA/domain-not-available nonsense tonight WITHOUT noting that OFA's official website is located at BarackObama.com.
Et tu, Rachel?
And...... no one cares.
What a stupid article, why would the government use a .com, .org, or .net domain?
Look at whitehouse.com if you think this is really a concern for the government.
They would use a .gov domain, which the public can't register.
First of all, who goes direct to a domain anymore? If anybody's visiting the site, they're following email links or googling OFA.
Second, if we're going to talk about what will cost the Democrats in the midterms, how about forcing Dems in red states to take public stances against the NRA. We will lose those seats because of Bloomberg's PAC.
Congrats my fellow Dems! Back to our normal levels of incompetence.
I too have watched Rachel for years and she is my favorite MSNBC analyst but I too agree that she is off the mark on this OFA diatribe.
I am an OFA member and have to say that it is an amazing outreach of we the people. I have to wonder why Rachel is so keyed up about this. The email gave no time frame for the response. I made mine in due time and I was grateful that they made it so easy for me to call my congressional leaders - they had a data bank right there at my finger tips.
This is a huge organization and they are in the process of transitioning the purpose, but it will happen. I know it will because I have been working for them since 2007. What we don't need here at the beginning is a bunch of hypercritical lampooning. It almost sounds like Rachel has a vendetta against some of the Obama campaign people. My advice to Rachel is take a chill pill and give it a chance.