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Audio Report: In Pittsburgh, The Post's Jim VandeHei on the Kerry-Edwards Democratic ticket.
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Transcript: Post Associate Editor Robert G. Kaiser discusses the selection.
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Transcript: Bush-Cheney Spokesman Scott Stanzel
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Transcript: Kerry-Edwards Spokesman Tad Devine
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By David McGuire Special to the Washington Post
Wednesday, July 7, 2004; Page E01
Indianapolis native Kerry Edwards is feeling pretty good about his decision to immortalize his name on the Web six years ago.
Yesterday, shortly after presidential candidate John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) announced that Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) will be his running mate, the 34-year-old bail bondsman and owner of Kerryedwards.com said he took down the picture of his child that graced the Web site and put up a for-sale sign.
It didn't take long for the phone to ring.
"Our campaign did inquire about KerryEdwards.com, but because of the money they were asking for, we took a pass," said Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan. He said Edwards wanted a five-figure payment.
Edwards said he did not discuss an exact figure with the campaign, and he would not name a price in an interview. But he did say the price would have to be right for him to part with the now-hot address. "I'm not going to give away my name for $1,000," he said.
He added that one person offered him $15,000 for the domain and that another offered to split advertising revenue generated from the page. He wouldn't identify either bidder.
Meehan said the Kerry organization, at least for now, will stick with its Web address, www.johnkerry.com. "It's a site we've branded, and we have over a million subscribers and we're looking to decide what we're doing going forward."
Edwards's potential windfall highlights a 21st-century quandary for the newly christened Kerry-Edwards campaign, which may hit a snag if it tries to break ground on a new online home.
Web addresses ending in .com and .org can cost $8 to $35. Ever since the Internet became popular, many people have speculated that the Internet domains they buy today could be worth thousands, or maybe millions, of dollars tomorrow.
Other obvious choices for a campaign Web site -- including KerryEdwards04.com, KerryEdwards2004.com, and KerryEdwards-2004.com -- have already been registered, according to publicly available Internet records. The listed owners of those sites could not be reached yesterday.
