Political spats played out across the Internet are becoming daily occurrences this election season, and as we reported last week, supporters of long-shot presidential hopeful Ron Paul, a congressman from Texas, can often be found at the center of that mosh pit. But a clever trick by the eCampaign for Sen. John McCain may have the Arizona Republican benefiting from the most recent cyberscuffle over Paul's candidacy.
A quick background: Paul made headlines after the most recent debate between Republican presidential candidates after he suggested that the 9/11 attacks were in some way related to the United States' previous attacks in Iraq, saying: "They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years." The comment drew a sharp rebuke from Rudy Giuliani, winning the former New York City mayor enthusiastic applause. (See video.)
In response to Paul's comment, the chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Saul Anuzis, began a petition to ban Paul from further Republican debates.
But no one ever went broke underestimating the enthusiasm--and, one suspects, spare time--of Ron Paul's Internet supporters. One of them, Dena Turner, began a counterpetition at www.PetitionOnline.com, which allows supporters to log on and register their support.
As of 4:00 on Friday afternoon, it had more than 11,000 signatures.
Now for the surprise: Early this afternoon, the page that displays the list of signatories featured a large ad for John McCain. (It has since rotated to another ad.)
A technician with Artifice, the parent company of PetitionOnline.com, tells News Desk that the site sells all of its ads through Google's AdSense. Under this system, advertisers provide Google with keywords that they want to associate with their product or service, and Google uses its algorithm to place the ads on sites participating in AdSense that contain those keywords.
Christian Ferry, McCain's director of eCampaigns, verified that their campaign uses AdSense, but was traveling and did not have the list of specific words available.
"We're thrilled with the results that we're seeing through Google advertising," Ferry said, noting that the traffic metrics he monitors are encouraging.
Google, which did not return requests for comment, is often vague about the exact methods of its search technologies.
As we wrote in April, Republicans have struggled with different techniques for creating a wide base of "netroots" activists. Whether it was intended or not, McCain appears to be matching inroads into Ron Paul's online magisteria.
--Chris Wilson
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