Intellectual Property Law

John McCain's campaign this week launched a new micro-site that graphically illustrates the politics of an unfolding investigation in Alaska regarding Governor Sarah Palin.

The site "The Palin Truth Files," uses a sarcastic video to play down a bi-partisan investigation by the state's legislature into the circumstances surrounding the firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner Walter Monegan. The panel wants to find out whether a personal feud in the Palin family influenced Monegan's firing. Monegan has said that Palin's husband had visited him and told him that Mike Wooten, a state trooper who was Sarah Palin's brother-in-law, wasn't fit to serve in his job.

But Palin herself has said that she was trying to alert Monegan to the danger that she thought Wooten was posing to her family. Palin recounted in an e-mail to the chief of the state police that she heard Wooten threatening to kill her father. 

The new McCain-Palin micro-site presents viewers with an elaborate dossier of information that frames the investigation into the matter as a political hit job.

One section of the site features a scrolling timeline of the events, another shows a 'web of connections' between some of the investigators and Barack Obama.

Though it may be selective information, the site conveys the McCain-Palin team's message simply and in an easy-to-understand way, which is why it might make an impression.

The presidential candidates have experimented with micro-sites several times during this election. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama used them during the primaries to track each others' personal "attacks" on each other.

And Obama's campaign launched a site this June to battle an underground e-mail whispering campaign against him.

Micro-sites have also become a favorite tool of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is using them to brand Democrats in senate races around the country.