Yesterday was Dr. Ron Paul’s birthday and supporters had organized a birthday money bomb. A goal was set at 1.5 million dollars in small individual donations in 24 hours. As the goal was about to be reached, with a few hours to go, the website appears to have been hacked, blocking the ability for supporters to donate to the campaign.
The first announcement came on Ron Paul’s facebook site stating:
The RonPaul2012.com website is under cyber attack. Our team is working to fix this as we speak. So sorry to all who have tried to make donations and could not. We’ll have more info ASAP.
Later his campaign manager John Tate sent the following email:
We thought it was bad when the media tried to ignore us to keep our message under wraps. But it just got worse.
Earlier this evening, a cyberattack was launched on our website – shutting us down and robbing us of the last few hours of our money bomb.
Boy, the establishment is more desperate than I thought. They don’t even want our message to get out ON OUR OWN WEBSITE now!
We will not be silenced, and our money bomb will not be deterred.Before the attack, we were VERY close to our $1.5 million goal – now we’re at $1.49 million and counting.We’re still working on restoring full functionality to the online store, but the rest of our website is back up and running.
And because of the time we lost toward reaching our goal, I’m announcing now that we’ll be leaving the ticker up until Noon pacific tomorrow and extending the Ron Paul Birthday Money Bomb!
To further show the establishment that we’re more determined than ever to win this race, we’re also extending the goal to $1.75 million!
Our message will not be stopped. Our Revolution is gaining ground every day.Thank you for your patience, and I hope you’ll help us reach this new goal for the Ron Paul Birthday Money Bomb!
If this does turn out to be hacking of some sort, I think this is the first instance of anything like this happening. Sarah Palin had her email account hacked in 2008, but a cyber attack to disrupt fundraising is a whole new level of dirty politics.
I have no idea who is responsible, but before any grand conspiracy theories erupt in the comment section let me say that I am highly doubtful that this is the work of any official campaign, media organization or military industrial complex. I speculate that is it is most likely some bored guy in a basement somewhere with an ax to grind against Ron Paul, or a supporter of another candidate with no official connection or foreknowledge by any other campaign.
Another possible scenario that has been suggested is that the website crashed as many supporters attempt to use it to donate. While certainly possible, this is not the first money bomb for Paul and his website service has been able to handle the load in the past.
As of the writing of this article, there is 4 hours until the end of the extension and the current amount raised is 1.6million dollars since midnight yesterday. I’m sure any presidential candidate would be humbled and grateful
by that kind of birthday present from his or her supporters.
