McCain Campaign Shocked by the Hacking of Palin’s Email Account

Last updated on August 11th, 2014 at 12:01 am

It seems that the savior of the Republican Party, Sarah Palin was stupid enough to actually still be using her personal Yahoo email account, and she got herself hacked. This led to shock and outrage by the McCain campaign over the invasion of the potential vice president’s privacy.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said, “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.” Before I get into the politics of this I think we all can agree that no one should have their personal email account hacked, and that it is an invasion of privacy. That being said, why in the heck was a sitting governor using a public email service like Yahoo, when she has an official secure email account with the state?

Any public figure who takes the security risk of using an unsecure email service is asking to be hacked. It is a symptom of how out of touch the McCain campaign truly is, if they are shocked at all by this development, especially with the trooper gate investigation going on and a lot of curious eyes on Palin and her email. At very best, she was using her email account for personal reasons, and having said email posted all over the Internet will only cause personal embarrassment. At worst, there is something in that account that could harm the campaign.

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Either way, both Palin and the McCain campaign should have known better. If Palin didn’t know better, then somebody with the McCain campaign should have closed down her Yahoo account as soon as she became his running mate, but if the McCain campaign isn’t even organized enough to keep Palin’s email out of public hands, how can they be trusted with actual state secrets?

It is only Wednesday and this week has been a disaster for McCain. His bounce is gone, the buzz around his running mate has been knocked off the front pages, and he has advisors claiming that he helped create the Blackberry. The last thing they needed was Palin’s private email being displayed all over the Internet. McCain likes to tout his experience, but Obama is running the tighter campaign. If his campaign is any indication of his governing style, a President McCain might cause America to yearn for the good old days of George W. Bush

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association