Jon Huntsman has his name back, bringing to an end one of the more amusing chapters of the early presidential campaign.
Back in February, it was pointed out that Mike Link owned JonHuntsman.com, the domain the then-theoretical Huntsman campaign would most like to get its hands on as it rolled out Huntsman’s too-cool-for-school web presence.
In April, the domain became home to a Huntsman-bashing site centered around letters of praise Huntsman sent President Obama when he was appointed Ambassador to China back in 2009. Now, after a mysterious sale, that site is gone seemingly for good.
Here’s a screengrab of what JonHuntsman.com used to look like. Now, the domain redirects to Huntsman’s existing campaign homepage, Jon2012.com.
Link told TPM the domain was “sold recently and changed hands in the past few days.” He said he sold the site “to a ‘John Smith’” and said that he wasn’t “100% sure the buyer is affiliated with the Huntsman campaign.”
Link said “very soon after” the sale last week, Huntsman spokesperson Tim Miller tweeted the URL as Hunstman’s new official campaign domain.
The site dinging Hunstman over the letters has now vanished, and Huntsman critics have lost of one of their best — and most ironic — lines of attack.
Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the site from TPM.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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