While presidential candidate Ron Paul was celebrating his birthday yesterday, nefarious elements of the big government establishment were conspiring against him. At least, that’s the story according to Paul campaign manager John Tate.

The campaign was attempting to conduct one of their famous online “money bomb” fundraising drives in honor of Congressman Ron Paul’s 76th birthday. The stated goal of $1.5 million was within sight when, the Paul campaign claims, a “cyberattack was launched on our website – shutting us down and robbing us of the last few hours of our money bomb.”

“Boy, the establishment is more desperate than I thought,” wrote Tate. “They don’t even want our message to get out ON OUR OWN WEBSITE now!”

The Paul campaign announced, in open defiance of the “establishment” that was apparently responsible for yesterday’s sabotage, that they would continue the money bomb for another 12 hours and raise the goal to $1.75 million.

While Tate doesn’t directly come out and say that another candidate was behind the attack, he comes pretty close…

You see, with Dr. Paul’s support surging nationwide and two recent polls showing our campaign leading anointed establishment “frontrunners” Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, I can’t say I’m surprised we’re receiving attacks like these. The culprit? You and I can only speculate, but we both know there are folks out there who will do literally ANYTHING to stop Dr. Paul’s message of liberty from getting out – even on our own website!

The extended money bomb is now entering into its final hour and the amount raised is only $30,000 short of the extended goal of $1.75.