By Elise Hu, The Texas Tribune
Gov. Rick Perry took to the Internet to "Talk Texas" with his supporters and open up his campaign with a bang. But his website wasn't up to it....
The Perry campaign's journey into the world of instant online communication hit a major cyber-roadblock Tuesday morning, when the governor's much-anticipated web announcement to officially kick off his re-election campaign fell victim to an alleged hacker attack that kept supporters and other curious web-watchers from being able to see the governor at all.
Multiple panicked reloads were powerless against the error: "Unable to connect to server," it read. "Too many connections."
Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the campaign's website was hacked from outside to prevent Perry's supporters from logging in. "Today’s 'Talkin' Texas' webcast by Gov. Perry was deliberately interrupted by a denial-of-service attack, preventing countless users from logging in to view the Governor's remarks. This planned and coordinated attack was political sabotage, and we are working to identify those responsible for this illegal activity. Before the attack was initiated, more than 22,000 users were able to log in and view Gov. Perry's complete remarks, which will be distributed shortly."
The troubles delighted his opponents.
"Clearly Rick Perry should have spent less paying off supporters and more on technology," said Joe Pounder, a spokesman for gubernatorial hopeful Kay Bailey Hutchison. He was referring to a report in The Dallas Morning News about Perry's campaign paying workers for recruiting new supporters.
On the social networking site Twitter, 140-character blasts against the failed online effort popped up almost immediately.
Phillip Martin, who directs social media strategy for the Texas Democratic Trust, which raises money for Democratic candidates across Texas, tweeted, "Congrats Governor Perry and the... team for the epic failure [of] their social media campaign."
A politician using non-traditional means to make campaign announcements is nothing new, but novel for Texas, where Governor Perry was expected to be the first statewide candidate to officially announce his candidacy with a streaming webcast. Now it will be a taped video instead. [That's now posted on Perry's web site].
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used a taped video posted to her website to announce she was officially in the 2008 race for president.
