Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Hackers & Sarah Palin

Some hackers have gotten into Sarah Palin's personal email and plastered them around the Internet. I understand there's nothing inflammatory but it's raising a stink. Part of the stink has to do with the allegation (or truth) that she has two Blackberry's and sometimes uses her personal Yahoo account to send government related emails. Since that has already been bandied about in the Press I don't see that causing a problem, unless you're a die-hard Democrat and want another reason to attack her .

People are going nuts trying to get something on her. They must be terrified of the power she has at the moment to energize voters or they wouldn't be trying so hard to find something. All those people running around in Alaska trying to ferret out some tidbit they can twist or exaggerate into a scandal to hurt her standing and they haven't found anything but disgruntled former opponents to throw mud. Must be frustrating.

The harder they try the more people stand up for her and move to her side. None of the typical political stunts and tactics are working and I think it's driving some people absolutely nuts.

I will say one thing on the hacking --- you'd think that as soon as she became a VP candidate the Secret Service or handlers or whoever takes care of these things would have gotten her a more secure email account. Of course, nothing is bullet-proof when it comes to determined hackers these days so not sure that would be possible. It would be interesting to find out which service the other candidates and some of our other elected officials are using.

I can hear someone out there in the wings right now saying "there's another thing that just shows her inexperience". Don't even bother to go down the experience road, it doesn't stack up or hold water or whatever metaphor you want to insert here.

I don't care whether she was John McCain's second choice. I don't care if she pressured the jerk who was openly working against her into firing the guy who threatened to kill her father and tasered his stepson (she didn't pressure anyone, but those who want to believe something bad about her are going to keep that one going as long as possible). I don't care about any of the little nit-picky things people on the other side of the ticket keep trying to use to discredit her. I don't care if she hasn't been in the Senate (which has never been considered Presidential experience before) or been on Meet the Press. I like it that she has five children and chose to have a Down Syndrome child. I like the fact that her husband likes to chip in and help and is very supportive of her (and she reciprocates). I like it that she can handle two Blackberry devices ;-) I don't care that she would be a heartbeat away from being President, I think she'd be a much better President than Barack Obama right now.

So far everything, and I mean everything, that is being thrown at her is sliding right off her Teflon armor. I've had more friends telling me they're now going to be voting than ever! Some have switched from a Democratic vote to Republican this election, some from a no-vote, some from the Libertarian, etc., etc.

This is a statement from the McCain-Palin campaign on the email issue:

"This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."

I understand the Secret Service is trying to track down the hackers and that the AP is refusing to help.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sarah Palin appeals to the conservatives to the right of McCain and that is it. No one else is buying it. Palin shores up the vote of those 20-or-so percent of folks that still think Bush is doing a good job. She is not a traditional Republican. Traditional Republican conservative minds do not like the pick (read conservative columnists George Will and David Brooks). She is a populist choice. She is John McCain's "oh, so you won't let me have Joe Liebermann? Well how about this?" revenge. Palin is a regular Huey Long or William Jennings Bryan. The kind of "up from the people" candidate that has Eisenhower spinning in his grave. She's Mike Huckabee with lipstick (and much less to offer as far as skill, judgment and experience is concerned).

The reason everyone in the media is up in Alaska digging around is because 3 weeks ago 99.5% of Americans couldn't have picked Palin out of a police lineup. Now she's in line to possibly the president. Don't you think that the public should know a little about her (especially since the McCain campaign is guarding her so closely?)

Google: "Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and Sarah Palin." His comments say it all. Most people aren't impressed. I supported McCain in the primaries 8 years ago. I consider myself an independent. The Palin pick clinched my Obama vote. There are many like me. The only ones ga-ga over Palin are the old Bush base. And 8 years of W disasters has that base smaller than ever.