Sunday, March 16, 2008

Clinton Campaign Causes Havoc, Sends Map Makers Scurrying For Updates


Satellites Scrambled, Causing Hours of Blank Screens On Google Earth; Rand McNally. Others Dig Through Antique Maps For Answers


News is just beginning to leak out, of the nearly catastrophic damage, and economic hardship, the Hillary Clinton campaign caused earlier this week.

In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Mark Penn, Clinton Chief strategist, stated that "We believe the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes straight through Pennsylvania’’, and "if Obama can’t win there, he asked, how can he win the White House?"

Within minutes of this statement, Rand McNally saw their Thomas Bros. Map page on the website crash, with visitors searching for federal, state, and even unmarked county roads they could take to get to the White House from the State of Pennsylvania.

Rand McNally dug deep into their history, even calling some of their retired, elderly mapmakers, seeking out clues on where this road was located.

"This was pretty bad," said John L. 'Sully' Sullivan, editor of the newsletter "They Said It Here", which documents the roads, streets and avenues presidential candidates have given stump speeches on.

"The entire map making world was buzzing for hours", continued Sullivan. "We even put three people on to dig through our archives, to see if we missed something, if we could document some dusty trial that has been overlooked."

Even Google saw and an extraordinary rush on searches for this mysterious road, however, it didn't crash the system, as happened two-years ago, when an overload of Republicans, using the “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature, brought Google down.

But Google didn't escape trouble completely.

Google Earth went blank for nearly three-hours, as visitors sought to pull up the State of Pennsylvania, alternately zooming in-and-out, searching for the road that Penn referenced. Eventually, with the high number of visitors, all using the same features, at the same time, first caused slow load times, and eventually the screen went blank.

Google also took the precaution of moving their satellites around, performing their own search for this special road.

As of the time of this writing, no map company, Google, or individual, has discovered a road in Pennsylvania, that could be taken to directly reach 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C.

Senator Barack Obama's campaign reacted to the news of the havoc caused by the Clinton Campaign.

David Axelrod, Obama's Chief Strategist, questioned just how ready Hillary Clinton would be on Day One.

"More and more is coming out that Hillary Clinton is not prepared to answer that telephone at 3AM ... That she's overstated her experience ... Now, we're discovering that she, or her campaign, can't even give out simple directions ... That, perhaps, they don't know their geography ..."

"Trust me." Axelrod added, "Barack Obama knows the road to take to get to the White House, and he's well down that path right now."

"And you can call him, at 3AM, if you want to know."


Bonus Links

Sheldon Alberts: Somewhere, Karl Rove is smiling

Matthew Yglesias: In The General

USA Today: Clinton strategist says Obama 'can't win the general election'

Greg Sargent - Penn: Pennsylvania Will Show That Obama "Really Can't Win The General Election"

Greg Sargent: General Election Polls Show Hillary And Obama Roughly Even Against McCain In Pennsylvania

Anonymous Liberal: Some Thoughts


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