When I started blogging, getting and holding domain names could be a bit tricky, if one dealt with dodgy hosting companies that didn’t offer full service.  Most terms were for a single year, and expiration dates could sneak up on people.  Those days are far behind, however, with multi-year plans that ensure ownership of domain names and hosting services that routinely do automatic renewals for their clients.  Now, one would have to be a real bumbler to let a mission-critical domain ownership expire.

Meet the campaign of Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, the Democratic nominee for Governor in Wisconsin:

The web site for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett has disappeared.

Visitors to the site www.barrettforwisconsin.comwere greeted with a message today saying that the domain name expired on Wednesday and was awaiting either renewal or deletion. …

The site is Barrett’s main campaign web site, which is mentioned in all his press releases.

Earlier this afternoon, they had moved the site to a subdomain of a hosting service and redirected calls to the site to keep it alive; by the evening, they had apparently restored their ownership of the domain.  It’s up and running again now.

However, one has to wonder at the basic competency of Team Barrett, the Democratic Party, and the candidate himself.  The domain was purchased on August 25, 2009, by “Democratic Domain Holding” of Alexandria, VA.   Presumably, DDH didn’t pay more than, say, $25 for a one-year subscription, and probably paid significantly less. They bought a one-year subscription that indeed expired yesterday (the WHOIS data at the link had not been updated with the renewal information at the time this post was written).  Why not spend the extra $25 or less and buy a two-year subscription?  Didn’t DDH and Team Barrett know that the election would be held in November?

If Team Barrett is this bad about minding the mission-critical details in a campaign, how good can they possibly be if their leader gets elected to office?