Republicans aren't exactly admitting that they misled possible donors with
look-alike websites that only admitted in the small print that they were attacking Democrats. But they've
changed the websites' contribution pages to cut down on the confusion. Previously, the contribution pages of the National Republican Congressional Committee's attack pages were directly modeled on the websites of the Democrats being attacked, with similar color schemes and images of the candidates. Now:
The home page portion of these websites still remains online, including the disclosure, but the contribution page has changed.
For example, the big “donate” button on the John Barrow website takes donors to a new page, one that looks distinctly different from the John Barrow website and explicitly states the NRCC’s name at the top.
“The National Republican Congressional Committee exists to defeat House Democrats. Chip in today to help increase the Conservative Majority in the House,” the page reads.
Not that the
phishing warning Google put on at least one of the websites had anything to do with these changes, the NRCC would have us believe. It's just that "We recently updated our contribution pages, as we frequently do, to highlight our efforts to defeat House Democrats in 2014 and prevent Nancy Pelosi from ever being Speaker of the House again." Sure. And you never ever intended to trick people out of their money, either. Tell us another one!