The Power Jokers

SAN FRANCISCO (02/08/2000) - At the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago, the only thing more titillating than Dick Morris' spectacularly sordid demise was The Smart Ass, a political fanzine that skewered Dems and GOPers alike. Where else would you find a sex-channel spoof called "RNC after Dark," featuring the hardbodied trio of Pat Buchanan, Ralph Reed and Ollie "I'm looking for more than a few good men" North?

What a difference the Internet makes. Today, dozens of political spoof sites litter the Web. Two of them are standouts: GWBush.com and YesRudy.com launched as mirror images of official sites run by George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani, with deadpan indictments of the candidates replacing the original texts. Behind both satires is a digital agitprop outfit known as RTMark.

"With GWBush and YesRudy, we were able to focus on the corporate influence on politics," says Ray Thomas, an alias for one of the four pivotal members of RTMark. "One of our goals is to stir things up and get more engagement in the political process," adds Frank Guerrero, another alias. Their motive: Lampoon the powerful.

RTMark acts as a clearinghouse for art and activism. The site encourages collaborators to suggest creative anticorporate projects; the group then seeks out investors and workers, although Thomas estimates that only 20 percent of the projects posted need money to execute them. All members work under aliases, and some of the core members have never met each other.

Before entering politics, RTMark made a name for itself through the Barbie Liberation Organization, a wicked project that switched the voice boxes in over 300 Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls. Most recently, RTMark helped art site Etoy in its legal battle with retailer eToys.

Last April, when RTMark launched GWBush with programmer Zack Exley, the Bush camp went ballistic and issued a cease-and-desist letter.

"We like to embrace these cease-and-desist letters," says Guerrero. "They prove something is working." Less happy was Exley. While Bush's legal threats didn't worry him, Exley says he had "wanted to do a more straightforward parody." With RTMark's satirical mirror approach, Exley believed, "people were confused." In June 1999, Exley took over GWBush.

Then, as Thomas puts it, "a source with inner knowledge of the Giuliani campaign" told RTMark that Giuliani's Senate campaign team had failed to renew a YesRudy domain name it had earlier registered, and RTMark found a new cause.

At the time, the Republican candidate's official site, RudyYes, was "classic Giuliani one-way communication" says Guerrero.

RTMark designed a mirror site, alerted the media and waited for the Giuliani camp to bite. But Giuliani wasn't about to make the same mistake as Bush. As Bruce Teitelbaum, head of Giuliani's exploratory committee told the Village Voice: "There's nothing we can do to stop people parodying our site."

Six months later, YesRudy is still being refined by RTMark. And with the New York Senate campaign heating up, it won't lack for material.

Matthew Yeomans is a columnist for TheStandard.com.

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