Over the weekend, the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Scott Walker issued a press release claiming there were so many donations to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign that the Government Accountability Board’s online system could not process them all. According to Walker’s campaign manager, Keith Gilkes, “We ended up having to ‘unload’ our report because we brought the system to a grinding halt with the sheer volume of our donations, and other people had trouble filing their reports. The system just couldn’t process how large our donor listing was.”
While it might sound really really impressive that the sheer volume of donations to Scott Walker’s gubernatorial campaign ground the GAB’s website to a halt, it’s worth noting the Government Accountability Board points out their site never crashed:
“The Campaign Finance Information System did not crash. It was up and running throughout the weekend. No filers were prevented from downloading information, and the system has remained available throughout the filing period.”
Someone ought to tell Scott Walker and his campaign staff that if they’re going to make outlandish claims, they should at least try to make sure those claims are based in reality, and not some fantasyland.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature! Cut Walker some slack on this one – hard to tell the difference between crashing it & it functioning as designed. Even in context of the embarrassment that is GAB, the campaign finance site itself stands out. Let us not forget we paid over a million dollars for a out of state firm to develop the site – that the firm used a photo of the Minneapolis skyline because you know, us mid-westerners are all the same anyway. They blew deadlines and things have never worked properly. This is the same IT procurement acumen displayed by the UW Payroll system upgrade and their millions and millions of dollars literally wasted.
Yeah, I’ve always maintained the state could do much better when it comes to how it acquires and implements technology.
Working in that general field, it’s downright embarrassing. Of course I hear people seem to revel in stating that they’re computer illiterate, like it’s something to be proud of. All too often, computers/technology are treated like magic, as if it’s far to complicated to understand so they just accept whatever is fed to them.
I’m sure politics & government administration is particularly difficult though & I have a little sympathy. Fact is getting some one who actually knows what he/she is talking about isn’t easy – the private sector is much more enticing to most of them.
If I could count the number of times I’ve come onto a project late – when it’s over budget with almost nothing to show for it – and been able to tell in about 10 seconds, that somebody got sold a bill of goods by a questionable (at best) vendor.
Also, one need only look to the company in Redmond – home of more brilliant software engineers than anywhere else. Despite the abundance of brilliance, they’ve turned out a lot of really bad stuff. Big projects with a big team are really difficult without great leadership. Better off going with a small group of ninjas than an army of soldiers.
Some recent polling showed the gubernatorial race is Walker’s to lose. With crap like what came out of his campaign this weekend, he’s trying awfully hard. (I got a copy, too.)
I can’t help it. I can’t get excited about Walker. It doesn’t look like anyone else sees it, but I read the word “flake” across his forehead. We have enough flakes in government. Can’t we do better this time?
Cindy, I can relate. I’m not terribly enthused about my Democratic Congressional candidate.