UPTOWN — When Amy Crawford began campaigning against Ald. James Cappleman in the 46th Ward in October, the website amycrawford.com appeared with a picture of Crawford and posts purporting to be her campaign diary.
The posts are titled, “My Journey to become 46th Ward Alderman.”
But there is one problem: Crawford denies any affiliation with the website, which actually contains posts that question her competency and qualifications for the job.
“My campaign is very busy reaching out to voters person-to-person — we aren't spending time surfing Internet chatter, let alone generating fake third-party sites,” said Crawford, who faces Cappleman in a runoff election April 7.
While some suspect Cappleman is behind it, he vehemently denies his campaign is involved.
“We don’t do those kind of tactics, it’s not helpful,” the sitting alderman said of the fake Crawford website. “I wish the person or people who are doing that would take it down. If they want to use their energy, they can use their energy by working on my campaign.”
Both candidates denied running any sites other than those operated by their campaign, which include Amyfor46.org and James46.org. The domain jamescappleman.com does revert to another site, citizensforcappleman.com.
Amycrawford.com has gotten more active recently, with daily posts with links to news articles, campaign finance reports and even one of her campaign mailers. Tuesday's post said: "PHEW! Talking to voters is exhausting, diary. And having to pretend to care. WOWIE!"
Who is behind the site remains a mystery; there is no way to contact the administrator through the website.
Crawford says her team is uninterested in the fake profile and downplayed its potential impact.
“I think people who check out the local blogs understand a couple of basics: First, certain blogs have their own political slant," Crawford wrote in an email. "Second, all of about three people post comments on these blogs — and each of those folks clearly have their own political slant."
She noted that "there are about 30,000 voters in the 46th Ward. We're focused on real conversations with real voters, not the echo chamber of the handful of posters in the blogosphere."
Strategists like Craig Agranoff, a political consultant who specializes in digital media and runs the Advanced Campaigning program at Florida Atlantic University, warned that the fake site could do damage, especially in a close race.
The greatest risk is the fake site could surpass the real one in Google search results. He says that can easily happen if the site was created first, updated regularly and visited by users with some frequency.
"I don’t think that enough candidates really understand how much emphasis the public puts on a simple Google search just to find out information," Agranoff said. "As far as social media goes, this is one of the most effective tools out there, which is to have the organic placement in Google search."
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