Instead of denigrating democracy like elitist Republicans do against insolent citizens who dare challenge the supremacy of the Legislature, the Chiesman Center for Democracy has launched a campaign to encourage South Dakotans to “Sign a Petition, and Join the Conversation“:
As I noted yesterday, we have just a week left of petition signing (at least for initiatives; we’ll see if the 2018 Legislature does anything stupid enough to warrant a referendum drive!). Then the Chiesman Center can turn its attention from promoting the positively populist business of circulating and signing petitions to helping South Dakotans learn about and discuss the issues that make the ballot.
A little Google research shows that the jointheconversation.org website was initially registered in 2004 and renewed in 2016 by a registrar calling itself “SENDME DEADFLOWERS.”
The address on the website registration is a UPS Store in San Francisco. The state of California has no registration of a corporation or LLC by that name. The registrar’s e-mail address is admin@newspeak.com. That website has no easily accessible “About Us” information.
At this point, I’m unaware of the connection between SENDME DEADFLOWERS, newspeak.com, and the Chiesman Center for Democracy. I’ll post with more.
Oh, yes, one final note: the poll referred to on the jointheconversation.org home page was done by PPP, a Democrat-aligned polling group.
It’s a good video, right Michael?
Hold the phone, Michael! You forgot the “sd” at the end of the domain name. GoDaddy says jointheconversationsd.org was created June 26 this year and updated in August. The cryptic DeadFlowers site is interesting but inaccessible and apparently not connected to the Chiesman Center’s web presence.
Michael Wyland,
Did you follow the link provided to the Chiesman Center for Democracy in Rapid City, SD?
Cory:
You’re right. The jointheconversationsd.org site is registered to “Domains by Proxy, LLC,” in Scottsdale AZ.
The Domains by Proxy web site home page features the following registered trademark: “Your identity is nobody’s business but ours.® ” Not a reassuring statement for those seeking transparency in political campaigns. The question remains: who is really behind this initiative to encourage petition signatures?
I actually found several variations of the “jointheconversation.org” domain using a Google search. Depending on timing of the various registrations and related corporate filings, if the various sites are not related to each other, the first would have a case for trademark infringement against the later ones, if they chose to pursue it. Particularly since the people in the video on the “jointheconversationsd.org” web site are wearing buttons with a logo that says “Join the Conversation” (no “SD”) which match the “Join the Conversation” (no SD) logo on the jointheconversationsd.org web site.
The benign interpretation of online facts to date would be that the SD group is in some way affiliated with the national group.
Roger:
Yes, I followed it and found the page featuring Chiesman’s alignment with the “Join the Conversation” initiative. The website link is for the SD version, but I note that the rest of the news brief uses the generic “Join the Conversation” term without appending SD in any way.
Michael, I’m willing to accept an even simpler explanation than your “benign” interpretation that the campaign is part of a national movement: Chiesman wanted to promote the petition process as an exercise in democracy. They decided “Join the Conversation” would be a great, simple slogan. Verb+noun, three words. Nice. But when they went to get the website, they found jointheconversation.org already taken. tacking two letters for the state on the end was the shortest relevant URL available, but they didn’t want the practical matter of picking the next-best URL to affect their simpler branding for the campaign overall. Verb+Noun+Abbreviation doesn’t sound quite as good.
Is there any sign that any other state with I&R has a similar “Join the Conversation” campaign?
Does trademark infringement occur only if the later users attempt to cash in on the original trademarked statement’s popularity? Say “Join the Conversation” in South Dakota, and I don’t think anyone will immediately think of some other popular good, service, or organization.
The wheels are coming off the wagon over at the War College with their effort to create something sinister about the Chiesman Center video.
Since when did encouraging people to join a conversation become a bad thing?
Encouraging conversation becomes a bad thing, Roger, when that conversation leads people to act in their own best interest and against the desires of the SDGOP.
Here’s the quick version of the follow-up:
Media One Advertising/Marketing in Sioux Falls created the video and website. They claim there was no client other than the Chiesman Center. According to Chiesman, Media One gifted Chiesman with the materials at no charge after they were completed – Chiesman never solicited the materials and did not participate in their reation.
Media One says the “Join the Conversation” campaign in SD is unrelated to any similarly named organization or campaign, and that Media One paid the production and web hosting costs out of their own budget – no external funds were used.
Any costs Chiesman incurs will be paid using Chiesman’s own funds – they say there is no donor or grant source other than Media One, and Media One provided the materials, not cash.
Frankly, I wish Media One had used its own media savvy to announce the campaign, and its “partnership” with Chiesman publicly, and I wish Chiesman had acknowledged publicly (dare I say thanked?) Media One for their gift of the “Join the Conversation” campaign materials Chiesman is now promoting.
A fuller story will be published soon, either on The Nonprofit Quarterly (NPQ) website or on LinkedIn.