For much of the last year, going to the command line on your computer and typing "briankemp.com" brought you to the website for his archrival Stacey Abrams.
But over the weekend, the Republican reclaimed the rights to his name – sort of.
He has newly-minted state Rep. Colton Moore to thank for it.
Moore is a recent college graduate in northwest Georgia who won an upset victory in the GOP primary against a state House incumbent and has grand designs of bringing Chick-fil-A to his Dade County hometown and reducing the area's unemployment.
He's also a vocal Kemp supporter who told us that the sight of an airplane circling Athens on a football Saturday accusing the Republican candidate for governor of rooting for the Tennessee Volunteers put him over the edge.
So he reached out through an intermediary to another Brian Kemp – a public relations strategist in California – who owned the site.
The Other Kemp purchased the domain around 1999, before the Georgia Kemp’s first run for office, and redirected it to the Abrams site earlier this year.
The Other Kemp said he designed that website as a “personal resume blog” way back when, and has been getting mistaken fundraiser invitations for the Georgian since the early 2000s. He didn’t comment further.
Moore said he worked with Michael Gargiulo, a domain-name expert, to broker what he described as a five-figure name transaction to buy the rights to the site. He wouldn’t disclose the exact price, but said he used personal funds to close the deal.
We should note that entering BrianKemp.com now does not simply redirect to Kemp's official gubernatorial account. Instead it goes to a new page featuring Moore and Kemp atop a blaring headline:
“Reclaiming history.”
Read more recent AJC coverage of the Georgia race for governor:
AJC/Channel 2 poll: Abrams and Kemp in tight race; Trump's approval up
Abrams makes history with Atlanta Pride march
About the Author
