TimKaine.com Owned by Conservative Activist

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) brings a number of attractive qualities to the ticket as vice president, but Sen. Barack Obama's tech savvy campaign team will have to work to rescue a valuable URL if Kaine is chosen as the senator's running mate.

Right now, visitors to TimKaine.com are automatically redirected to the official website of Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling.

As reported by the Washington Post in 2005, the domain name TimKaine.com was registered in April 2001 by Matt Chancey, a young, self-described conservative Christian activist who lived in Harrisonburg, Virginia at the time.

While there were initial fears that he would use the Web site to tarnish Kaine's image, they were laid to rest when the Chancey chose to redirect visitors to Kaine's official lieutenant governor's web page. The Web site didn't become an issue and the Kaine campaign utilized Kaine2005.org, which is no longer active.

But it appears that Chancey never updated the redirect, and so visitors to TimKaine.com are now directed to the official Web site of Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling. If Kaine ends up being chosen as Obama's running mate and the pair wins the election, Bolling would succeed Kaine as governor of Virginia.

Most importantly, if Kaine is chosen, the Obama campaign will likely do everything they can to obtain the coveted URL. Chancey just lost a July 15 runoff for the GOP nomination for Public Service Commission president in Alabama.

The first draft of this item first appeared on Political Wire on July 29, 2008.