Arnold gets hacked!

The Los Angeles Times reported (Sept 2006) that in a private meeting, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican Governor of California, said that a fellow Republican of Puerto Rican descent, Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, was passionate because of her ethnicity. The conversation was recorded by one of his staff people.

Arnold said, “I mean Cuban, Puerto Rican, they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it.” He was comparing her to a fellow bodybuilder.

These comments caused a huge uproar even thought Ms Garcia said she was not at all offended. Race is such a sensitive area of American society that the remarks were sure to be hot.

But how did the LA Times get this story since the conversation took place in a private meeting?

The campaign organization of Democratic candidate for governor, Phil Angelides, who was running against Schwarzenegger said that it was the source of audio files.

Ah ha! So this is all part of a political war; Dirty politics; Anything goes campaigning in America.

The files had been put on a governor'sweb site. The California Highway Patrol launched an investigating to see if the files were illegally purloines by the Angelides campaign. Schwarzenegger’s communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, said the Web site from which the files were downloaded was not supposed to be publicly accessible. But he agreed that it "... was not as secure as it ought to be .." No Duh!

The Angelides campaign said they had gotten a link to some audio files in a press release from the governors office. They then just started working backwards by eliminating slashes on the address line on the browser and hit the sensitive spot with the confidential files. YIKES! That's way too easy!

My question is "Why the heck did the Gov's people put any files but especially private and confidential (and sensitive) discussion like this on a WEB SITE?! Might as well film these meetings and upload them to YouTube!

The digital age is great and the Internet has become a huge tool for politics - campaigning, fund raising, signing up volunteers, "Meeting Up" people for campaigns, etc. BUT, many campaign or political people are really not ready for "prime Internet time" and the security issues is probably the single most critical part. What's missing is properly managing the security part of information technology in politics.

Arnold, you need to spank your staff!

A Clinton Democratic Party?

Blogger and journalist Stephen Pizzo http://www.stephen.pizzo.com/ wrote an interesting piece about the rumor that the Clinton's are by-passing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and building their own Democratic party. Here is what he wrote

"I heard the other day that the Clintonians, led by that little sycophant Rham Emmanuel, are setting up their own parallel DNC in order to cut the Dean wing out of the 08 action and thereby triangulate Hillary into the top spot on the 08 ticket. . If this is true it needs to get more attention than it has so far. Because if Hillary is the Dem choice in 08 we get at least 4-more years of GOP rule."

I have heard the same rumblings as we start looking past the 06 election and eyes are turning to the presidential contest in 08. (of course former Clintonista Harold Ickes launched a data warehouse in competition with the DNC voter turnout efforts several months ago as a profit making companyparty funded by billionaire George Soros. So, Dean has sniper fire coming from all directions).

In fact, it's not just the Clinton's who are at odds with Howard Dean as head of the Democratic Party. I have been amazed at how divided Democrats are over the direction the party should take to beat the GOP. On my radio show callers representing several sides of the Dem party, call in and regularly bash each other. (My show- "Dr. Politics" on WOI Public Radio http://www.woi.org/Stream.html Live Monday's at 9-10 a.m. Central time, http://www.woi.org/archive.html scroll down for archives of selected programs).

The Clinton faction now also seems potentially pitted against the Gore machine. Al Gore is suddenly very visible and many of us are hearing that he may be a stealth candidate for 2008 - talkin' environment, goin' on MTV Music Awards, writing a book and producing a film, but really building a new political persona for a comeback.

In Iowa, Hillary and Senator Edwards have led the polls for the 08 slot. Sen. Joe Biden may qualify for Iowa in-state tuition he's been here so often!

McCain is the lead Republican today with a big surprise, Mayor Rudy Guiliuani also doing well! Of course, Condoleeza Rice was way ahead of all the other Republicans for 08 in another recent poll - she's not running but she's hot!

Stay tuned. It's gonna be a long, crowded and expensive 2 years till 08!

Who are YOU excited about?