Politics Goes Viral

From ShaneBertou.com, in a post considering the YouTube video that uses an old AppleMac ad but inserts Hillary Clinton as the oppressive dictator/mind shaper:

This is no doubt an interesting development in the world of political advertising. It will be interesting to see if candidates begin to see YouTube as a powerful ally and begin viral ad campaigns geared more toward it. It will also be interesting to see if there is an emergence of more “mysterious” ads that will allow campaign managers to skirt around certain legal and ethical limitations in political advertising.

—and, interesting to see how motivated individuals not directly associated with any political campaign use viral marketing to affect democratic elections.  ‘08 may be the year of YouTube Politics.

UPDATE:  Interesting tie-in to this story. Did you know that YouTube actually set aside a special section on its web site for the 2008 presidential campaign?

 

 
I sure didn’t. Today I stumbled across an AP story on the UsaToday site mentioning it, with the headline, “Obama leads the YouTube vote”:

If the 2008 presidential election were held on YouTube, Barack Obama would win in a landslide.

Candidates of both parties have established channels on the video-sharing site. Earlier this month, YouTube set up a hub specifically for ‘08 candidates.

It has attracted the participation of Democrats: Illinois Sen. Obama, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd; and Republicans: Arizona Sen. John McCain, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

(A handful of declared candidates, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and California Rep. Duncan Hunter, don’t have profiles on YouTube.)

YouTube has proven its power in influencing political campaigns in virally spreading clips such as when former Sen. George Allen, R-Va., uttered the word “macaca” during a campaign event. Though the site is adept at highlighting gaffs and blunders, whether it can do anything to swell positive support is another question entirely.

Three things interesting in this snippet:

1. The viral nature of such activity, and its power, is being acknowledged by the MSM. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised about this use of the term; perhaps I’m a few months or even years behind the times. In any case, I wonder if we should pay more attention to how the general discourse may change, in whatever way, as a signal of generational change.
2. The cast of characters are jolly-ho for keeping up with the times. I can’t help thinking that Howard Dean’s run was the real clicker for them (and for almost everyone else.)
3. The point about differentiating between “highlighting gaffs and blunders” and “swell[ing] support” is well-taken, and, I think, very important.

But here is why the article would predict such a ‘landslide’:

YouTube is a democracy of its own — every video can be ranked by the number of views its receives. In this online popularity contest, the 45-year-old Obama currently leads handily in view-counts.

That result isn’t surprising since the YouTube audience is predominantly young. Obama, who was ahead of most of the competition by getting himself up on YouTube six months ago, had more than 627,400 views of his channel as of Tuesday. Several of his 21 videos have been watched by 100,000-plus.

Clinton trails with about 51,000 views on her channel. Edwards, whose campaign joined YouTube 11 months ago, has yielded 40,000 views. Richardson has some 14,100, Kucinich is nearing 14,000, Biden’s channel has been seen by about 13,500 and Dodd is last with 3,800.

The Republicans have faired much worse, although Giuliani would come in third, with 43,100 views.

UPDATE#2: A.E. has linked an item on Simulated Laughter revealing the identity of the unknown creator of the anti-Hillary video.

Did you catch the sloppy rebuttal video, btw?