I'm not sure I buy that. Aaron Swartz is not exactly Willie Horton. Even if you paint him as a dangerous computer hacker, that doesn't strike me as a particularly convincing political ad.
Imagine the words: "Ortiz has put DANGEROUS HACKERS behind bars!" spoken in dramatic politic ads speaker voice, with the words printed on the screen over a blurred image of jail bars.
That's easily the sort of thing that could be in a political ad. It says not only that she was a good prosecutor, but that she is probably technologically savy as well. I doubt they would bother referring to that particular incident by name (it is often best to be somewhat vague, to keep yourself a hard target to attack).
(This said, I also suspect the politics aspect is more about favors and less about advertising).
I guess so. There may well be some truth to the charge that the case was prosecuted aggressively because it was likely to earn a lot of press. But I think you're right. It seems very unlikely Aaron Swartz was the lynchpin of any grand political strategy.
Willie Horton is an inapt comparison for every scenario in which Ortiz would try to capitalize on her record that I can think of. Willie Horton was a spoiler, not a feather.
I recognize that, but I think it's wholly beside my point, which is that it would be very hard to make Aaron Swartz and his crimes sound threatening. I don't think MIT computer hackers are what keep voters up at night. It might be true that politics played a role in the case, but it's silly to think this case would have been an important part of anyone's gubernatorial campaign.
Hacker does sound threatening to plenty of folks, thanks to the media. We're not talking graybeards elegant solutions to intricate problems here, we're talking about guys out trying to steal your credit card and to empty your bank account.
