e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Joe Wilson’s On My Website!

September 17th, 2009

Well, he WAS on epolitics.com, and via Google Ad, naturally, but it was still a bit startling to see. Both Rep. Wilson and his Democratic opponent Rob Miller have raised over $1.5 million each as a result of Wilson’s “You Lie!” outburst on the House floor last week, despite Wilson’s suffering a DDOS attack over the weekend that crashed his site. The money came in partly through outside activism on blogs and email lists, but also clearly through direct means such as the ad to the right, which linked through to a fundraising landing page (try this generic version if the other doesn’t work). Google Ads can be a terrific way to capitalize on a burst of media or blog attention, and this example provides a perfect illustration.

I haven’t seen Wilson’s ad since Tuesday, and it’s difficult to know how it was targeted — it was likely aimed at websites that mentioned of his name, of course, but there may have been a geographic angle as well, since it’s common for political advertisers to include the D.C. area even if they’re otherwise targeting a state or district. A note to regular readers: don’t forget to click on those ads! You never know what you might find on the other end.

– cpd

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