After Lieberman’s campaign web site went down yesterday, there was some suggestion that it might have been hacked by the opposition. Not so fast… turns out Lieberman’s $12 million campaign was running its site off a common $15/month hosting plan at a generic provider. I can just see how it all unfolded: Campaign director asks a friend who knows “a web guy I like” to build a site for the campaign. Web dude sets it up where he sets up all of his clients, never thinks to ask Day 1 questions like “So how much traffic do we expect here?” And neither does a single soul in the entire campaign staff.
Not saying Birdhouse could handle that kind of traffic, but I would certainly have the sense to make sure a site reaching out to a population this large had a dedicated server. Or two. Twist: The Lamont campaign offered midway through the day to take over hosting for their opponent — a gracious gesture — but never heard back.
Also interesting is that the gross underestimation wasn’t discovered until election day — evidence of how many people wait until the very last minute to start scrabbling together a bit of voting information.
That’s what happens when you use trucks instead of tubes, isn’t it?