Strategy Friday - Mo' Money, Mo' (Server) Problems for Obama.com?

For political candidates, demand is the name, and goal, of the game. However, as with any desireable thing, too much demand can leave campaigns scrambling to catch up. After surviving Super Tuesday, Barack Obama's campaign has done everything in its power to spin the stalemate into a victory. Whether that strategy works or not, the fact remains that voters seem to be taking even more notice of Illinois' junior senator. Yesterday, I wondered exactly how the Obama campaign might handle this increased interest/scrutiny.

Well, it turns out that, at least where the Internet is concerned, the answer is "not all that well, really".

After this week's strong turnout, I decided it was finally time to open up my wallet for the Obama campaign. I went to their website's donation page, and... was greeted by a message letting me know that, due to the unexpected surge of traffic after Super Tuesday, the Obama campaign's website was experiencing technical difficulties.

Huh.

What a terrible time for a breakdown. I'll head back when the site is back up, but I wonder how many casual donors might've been turned off. Probably not many, but it's still a problem worth addressing. Having a reliable Internet presence won't win you the nomination, but it certainly won't hurt.

The way I see it, the answer to this problem is one of two things. Either:

a) the campaign wasn't properly prepared for the post-Super Tuesday wave of supporters.

or

b) the campaign was prepared; the wave of supporters simply exceeded their expectations.

For the candidate's sake, I'm hoping for the last one. With nothing decided, everyone's looking forward to a protracted fight, and every dollar's going to count. Obama has a natural advantage in fundraising; he boasts more non-"maxed out" donors than Sen. Clinton all while outraising his competitors to the tune of $32 million in Jaunary alone. Now, if the Obama campaign can find a way to allow it apparently eager donors to actually, you know, fork over even more cash, the system will be operating as expected.