Reading Sanderson's column prompted a few questions in my mind so I sent him an e-mail asking, among other things: Given that .com dominates the public's consciousness, wouldn't candidates still be compelled to fight for and or buy the .com versions of their campaign sites lest those .com sites be used against them? In other words, is it fair to say that .pol would be at best a partial solution?

His reply: "No, I don't think it is a partial solution. In the long term, most Internet users would grow accustomed to visiting .pol sites to volunteer, contribute, etc., much the way they now know to visit .edu to visit a university's official site. Eventually, candidates would not feel any more compelled to purchase a .com site than a university does.

"In the short term, though, you are right that many users will want to turn to .com sites. But even though this is the case, I think .pol would help significantly reduce the price that cybersquatters are able to fetch for a domain name."

There was more to our exchange, which, if you're interested, can be read