[EL] Misleading GOP ad (Kyrsten Sinema)

[Scarberry, Mark]

It’s even hard to get to the site we’ve been discussing through Google. On the other hand, I’m not as sure as Mr. Cares that someone who gets there won’t be misled.

If you go to the URL cited by Mr. Cares, and click on “Donate,” you are taken to this URL: https://www.nrcc.org/kyrsten-sinema-congress/contribute/, which seems to be identical to the webpage we have been discussing.  I agree that a viewer who gets to *that* URL in the way suggested by Mr. Cares is not likely to be misled, because the viewer will have seen conspicuous language like “Fed up with Kyrsten Sinema?” in large print on the initial page. But note that the link that you get to that way does not have the same URL as the one we’ve been discussing, which is http://contribute.sinemaforcongress.com/.

It’s clear to me that a person who goes directly to  http://contribute.sinemaforcongress.com/ may well be misled. I suppose, as someone else has just noted, that one question is how likely it is that someone will go there directly.

A Google search for “kyrsten sinema congress donate” or “kyrsten sinema 2014” (in each case with or without the quotes) does not yield the site we’ve been discussing  (at least not on the first three pages of either search, as far as I can tell). So perhaps few people have gone there directly. It does pop up on the second Google search page if you search “Defeat Kyrsten Sinema” (with that phrase in quotes). The search result on the Google page is entitled “Make a Contribution Today to Help Defeat Kyrsten Sinema and ....” A viewer who gets to it that way will certainly not be misled.

I suppose the Sinema people found it by doing lots of searches and then told the media about it to make the NRCC look bad. And I suppose the NRCC deserves the bad publicity, even if they were somewhat inept in the way they set up the webpage.

Mark

Mark S. Scarberry
Professor of Law
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law




From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of info at arizonaspolitics.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2014 12:52 PM
To: John Tanner; Thomas J. Cares
Cc: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] Misleading GOP ad (Kyrsten Sinema)

I couldn't find a way, John.  (Interestingly, as I pointed out in my article, the Sinema/NRCC site is set up differently than the other two I examined - the "contribute" page for her is an UNSECURED page with a URL of "contribute.sinemaforcongress.com". The Barber and Kirkpatrick sites go to pages with secure URL's identifying as NRCC-related.)

But, it would seem to me that whether you can get to the "contribute" page independently of the 1st page is less relevant. Their primary purpose is really to attract people Googling for information about the incumbent;  any NRCC contributions would just be icing on the cake.

_____________________

Mitch Martinson

www.ArizonasPolitics.com
<http://www.ArizonasPolitics.com%3cbr%20/%3e>
602-799-7025

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [EL] Misleading GOP ad (Kyrsten Sinema)
From: John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com<mailto:john.k.tanner at gmail.com>>
Date: Tue, February 04, 2014 1:24 pm
To: "Thomas J. Cares" <Tom at tomcares.com<mailto:Tom at tomcares.com>>
Cc: Election Law <law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>>
Is there a way, other than using the link in the NBC article, that one reasonably could get to the contribute page without going through the first page?  I tried, but then others are more clever than I.



On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 2:18 PM, Thomas J. Cares <Tom at tomcares.com<mailto:Tom at tomcares.com>> wrote:
If you start at http://sinemaforcongress.com/ , it looks like perfectly-legitimate political speech to me. I don't think the donate page is trickery either. Making a sarcastic-negative ________forcongress.___ site for congressional candidates that also seeks contributions to that candidate's opposing party doesn't seem inappropriate (but rather pretty much in the spirit of the first amendment).

-Thomas Cares

Sent from my iPhone


On Tuesday, February 4, 2014, Jerald Lentini <jerald.lentini at gmail.com<mailto:jerald.lentini at gmail.com>> wrote:
If nothing else, the NRCC's disclaimer almost certainly fails to meet the requirements of being clear and conspicuous. Language identifying the NRCC is entirely outside the white text box and is overlaid on top of a photograph. It has the least color contrast of any part of the page, and is more difficult to read than any other text.

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 1:08 PM, <info at arizonaspolitics.com<mailto:info at arizonaspolitics.com>> wrote:

(One) irony is that the NRCC trumpeted this back in November, and claimed that they were doing it because the "targeted" Democratic Representatives were "FRAUDS".

My article: bit.ly/AZp736<http://bit.ly/AZp736>.

Did further research and found that all 3 Arizona Dems in swing districts were targeted with this.  (www.AnnKirkpatrick.com<http://www.AnnKirkpatrick.com>, www.SinemaForCongress.com<http://www.SinemaForCongress.com>, and www.RonBarber2014.com<http://www.RonBarber2014.com>)  And, in at least one of them, the word "Defeat" does NOT show up when the page comes up at 100% zoom.

The search engine optimization apparently worked well on Rep. Barber.  The NRCC site comes up on page 1 of Google (when you search "Ron Barber 2014"), and the official site is on page 5.

My article also lists the 14 Democratic Reps that I was able to find have been targeted in this way by the NRCC.
_____________________

Mitch Martinson
www.ArizonasPolitics.com<http://www.ArizonasPolitics.com>
602-799-7025

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [EL] Misleading GOP ad (Kyrsten Sinema)
From: "Scarberry, Mark" <Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu<mailto:Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu>>
Date: Tue, February 04, 2014 10:06 am
To: "law-election at UCI.edu<mailto:law-election at UCI.edu>" <law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>>

It absolutely is misleading. If the reader misses one word ("Defeat"), the reader would think contributions would be used to support the Democrat. You don't have to click through to an obviously anti-Sinema site to contribute, nor is there any other indication of the ad's true purpose.

Suppose there had been something conspicuous that would alert the would-be contributor, and the ad included a substantive criticism of Sinema. Would it be ethical to use the headline to get Sinema supporters to read the rest of the ad? My sense is no. It would be different if there were three question marks ("???") after the headline.

Mark Scarberry
Pepperdine

Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 4, 2014, at 7:03 AM, "Joseph Birkenstock" <jbirkenstock at capdale.com<mailto:jbirkenstock at capdale.com>> wrote:
>
> Holy charge-backs, Batman... What's the non-"we're trying to trick donors" reason for putting "Kyrsten Sinema for Congress" at the top of that webpage?
>
>
> ________________________________
> Joseph M. Birkenstock, Esq.
> Caplin & Drysdale, Chtd.
> One Thomas Circle, NW
> Washington, DC 20005
> (202) 862-7836
> www.capdale.com/jbirkenstock<http://www.capdale.com/jbirkenstock><http://www.capdale.com/jbirkenstock<http://www.capdale.com/jbirkenstock>>
>
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