The Shot!

This has got to be the best political story we’ve read all week.  You know our nerdy obsession with internet politics, so we have to give big props to Representative Joe Mahaffey for jacking Rita Allison’s domain names Ritaallison.com and Allisonforhouse.com.

Allison, surprisingly, has a “who gives a shit” attitude in this story, so we can only guess that one person is pushing this story (and Allison’s campaign) - one Rick Beltram.  Beltram tells Dalton “I think now he should be a big guy and either give them to her or sell them to her for a dollar.”

Yeah right. We think he should do the right thing and redirect the domains to joemahaffey.com. Or you could just link them to the Governor’s Office. We like Mrs. Allison a whole lot, but seriously, what will be the difference in Allison for House and the Governor’s Office anyway?

And just in case you guys are wondering, I’m not involved in this race.

Here’s the story:

State Rep. Joe Mahaffey owns Rita Allison.

More precisely, Mahaffey owns RitaAllison.com and AllisonForHouse.com. His campaign bought the domain names on Oct. 31, more than a month before Allison announced she would challenge Mahaffey for the Republican nomination in state House District 36.

Mahaffey, who is seeking a fourth term, said Friday that he didn’t know he owned the names until he was contacted by a Herald-Journal reporter. Upon further review, however, he said he learned that someone working on his campaign bought them. Mahaffey is listed as the registered agent.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but someone from my campaign did buy those domain names,” Mahaffey said. “I would consider selling them to Ms. Allison, and I would put a pretty good price on them.”

Allison, who held the District 36 seat for 10 years before giving it up in 2002 to run for lieutenant governor, said she learned earlier this week that Mahaffey had purchased the names, but that she wasn’t overly concerned.

“I guess all is fair in love, war and politics,” Allison said. “All I’m concerned with right now is running as clean a campaign as I can and concentrating on what I can do for the district and the state.”

Spartanburg County Republican Party Chairman Rick Beltram said that as political scandals go, Ritagate isn’t on the same scale as Watergate, or even Monicagate. But it did have him scratching his head.

“I don’t see any advantage to Joe Mahaffey to tie up those names,” Beltram said. “Instead, I think it raises the question of motive in the minds of the electorate.”

Beltram said now that Mahaffey has taken the names off the market, there’s only one thing he should do with them.

“I think now he should be a big guy and either give them to her or sell them to her for a dollar.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 1:52 pm and is filed under State Politics, The Chaser. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.