AUSTIN – If a politician makes campaign promises on a live webcast that goes down, does he make a sound?

ERIC GAY/The Associated Press

Gov. Rick Perry arrives at the Holt Caterpillar plant to deliver a Web address. As he was to begin, the campaign's server overloaded and had to be taken offline.

For Gov. Rick Perry, there was a definite thud Tuesday. And once out of the woods, the Perry campaign attributed the disruption to a planned Internet attack.

For several days, the Perry campaign promoted a live Web address that the governor was to deliver from the Holt Caterpillar plant in San Antonio. It was suggested that this was akin to a kickoff for his campaign for a third full term.

But just as the Republican was to begin speaking, the campaign's server was overloaded and had to be taken offline, disconnecting about 22,000 viewers. Some users were able to view the speech with no trouble.

Perry spokesman Mark Miner attributed the disruption to a denial-of-service attack, in which servers are deliberately bombarded with requests for data.

"This planned and coordinated attack was political sabotage, and we are working to identify those responsible for this illegal activity," Miner said.

He declined to name any suspects, but the inference was as clear as a tree falling in the woods.

GOP rival Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's campaign said it was in no way involved.

"What an embarrassing campaign launch," said Hutchison spokeswoman Jennifer Baker. "I'm sure the governor is hacked, but we are skeptical their site was. After all, Rick Perry isn't exactly a stranger when it comes to arrogantly blaming others for his mistakes."

Redglue Inc., which operates the Perry campaign Web site, said the server was "completely capable" of handling the traffic. Redglue president Anthony Kukla said a flood of false requests inundated the server about 11:20 a.m., and his company shut down the link and restarted the site – a process that took about 10 minutes.

"This is very easy to create. Thirteen-year-olds get caught breaking down the White House Web site," Kukla said.

He said he is certain the attack was intentional, not a glitch.

Keatron Evans, an expert at the Illinois-based computer security firm Infosec, said automated devices are available to launch such attacks. The Perry Web site's security measures would have made it a little more difficult, but someone with limited expertise could have pulled off such a ploy, he said.

Tracking such attacks is expensive and time-consuming, and the perpetrator is often hard to find, Evans said.

And of course, another explanation could be that "the server might not have been able to handle the load that was coming in," he said.

Phillip Martin, the social media strategist for the Texas Democratic Trust, which helps fund the state party, said such a well-coordinated attack against a Web site would be unusual because of the timing and sophistication.

Besides, he said, taking a swipe at both GOP camps, "If it were Kay Bailey Hutchison's team that hacked this, it would be the first competent thing they've accomplished."

In his speech, the governor proposed a constitutional amendment that would require a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to raise taxes and reversed an earlier position, saying he now favors criminal sanctions against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.