Building a GOP Web

By Dave Flessner

Staff Writer

The road to the White House for many Republicans in 2008 runs through Chattanooga, at least on the Internet.

GOP campaigns are paying Chattanooga-based Web companies millions of dollars this year to help host candidate and party Web sites, blast e-mails to party activists and provide video streaming of Republican political events. Jeff Averbeck, founder and majority owner of Airnet and Smartech in Chattanooga, said he expects the 2008 presidential campaign to help to double his company's revenues, which already have grown to more than $6 million.

"We have a lot of political consultants that now use us because of our record and relationships," he said. "Politics requires so much communication, and the Internet provides a very cost-effective way for candidates and campaigns to personally reach out to potential supporters."

From the basement of the Pioneer Building in downtown Chattanooga, Smartech and Airnet now host hundreds of domain sites and route up to 30 million e-mail blasts a week, Mr. Averbeck said.

Less than two miles to the south, another Chattanooga Web-based company, episode49, also is building a base of Republican Internet links. Ken Smith, president of episode49, recently landed a contract to manage online operations for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He is preparing plans for Web development work for several other potential GOP presidential contenders.

"It looks like 2008 is going to be very big for us," he said.

The Chattanooga companies have built their links from the initial software work the principals conducted for the Republican National Committee in 1998. Smartech, which at the time also included the owners of what is now episode49, helped the RNC get ready for the 2000 campaign when party officials were struggling with a software glitch, Mr. Averbeck said.

From their initial success and contacts, the owners of Smartech and episode49 have built nearly half of their respective Web businesses on Republican political business.

The GOP links continued even through the merger of Smartech into st3, a video streaming company that ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and shut down altogether in early 2002.

Despite the collapse of what was Chattanooga's biggest Internet venture, some of the principals involved in the company maintained their Republican business ties. They went on to resurrect a spun-off Smartech as a major Web and domain hosting venture and develop a new episode49 as a business and political Web development company.

During the 2005-06 election cycle the Republican National Committee paid Smartech more than $3 million for Web hosting, e-mail programming and other Web services, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Averbeck has developed a "Smart communicator" network for political candidates that links e-mails, targeted mailings and automated phone messages to help candidates quickly communicate with supporters. The network builds off the central database and record Smartech has developed over the past decade.

WHITE HOUSE E-MAILS

Smartech is the nameserver for more than 800 domain names, according to Web sites that track such information. One domain name set up by the RNC and hosted on a Smartech server is gwb43.com, which appeared on correspondence between White House officials discussing U.S. attorney vacancies, according to The Associated Press.

The Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that enforces the Hatch Act ban on mixing government and political business, said last week it will seek information about e-mail use by presidential aides from the White House, according to Loren Smith, the agency's director of congressional and public affairs.

RNC spokeswoman Tracy Schmitt said the RNC is cooperating fully with the investigation. Mr. Averbeck said Smartech does not have access to RNC e-mail records and simply routes the e-mails through its servers. The company has not received any subpoenas of its records from either the Office of Special Counsel or from congressional committees investigating RNC e-mails related to the firing of U.S. attorneys, Mr. Averbeck said.

"Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation on some blogs and Web sites, but we try to ignore it and do our job," he said.

RIDING THE RAILS

The Chattanooga Web companies, like st3 before them, are able to capitalize on Chattanooga's rich network of fiber lines running along the city's abundant rail lines, according to University of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor Andy Novobilski.

"Because we are such a major railroad hub, just about every fiber line across the country runs through Chattanooga, so it's really a wonderful place if you are going to send or receive a lot of communication," said Dr. Novobilski, chairman of the Chattanooga Technology Council.

Political communication along the Internet is likely to continue to grow as a means of gathering volunteers and campaign contributions or sending messages to current or potential supporters, according to John Horrigan of the Pew Internet Project.

"People are still relying on traditional media, but they are increasingly turning to the Internet as a research and background tool and to find out more about respective campaigns," Mr. Horrigan said.

Pew surveys found that in the 2006 election, 31 percent of Americans got at least some of their news online, Mr. Horrigan said.

RNC spokeswoman Amber Wilkinson said Republicans "continue to be the leaders in this area.

"The Internet has provided us a new and important vehicle to convey our messages, and we continue to add more to make our Web sites as active and interactive as possible," she said.

E-mail Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com