Vote Different: The Blogosphere is Relevant Again

by jordan | March 23, 2007 at 07:27 am | 455 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

So, unlike elections past, the blogosphere may actually affect the upcoming one. Anybody can have a blog, which is good, but everybody has a blog, which is not quite so good in terms of focused political efforts. Now, however, online video is at everyone's fingertips, and the US is nothing if not a television-driven society. The Vote Different video threw the pundits into a tizzy because they realized how easy it has become to create and air a global political advertisement, completely outside the control of campaign law. Put another way, if Phillip de Vellis could make one of these, nearly anybody could, as long as they know how to edit video.

To get a sense of the confusion the mega-viral Vote Different anti-Hillary Clinton video is sowing in professional political circles, just ask Clay Johnson, a veteran of Howard Dean's presidential campaign and a certifiable big thinker on online electioneering.

"I know that the (Barack) Obama folks are saying that they didn't make it ... but people will still believe that it's from them," said Johnson about the YouTube clip in an interview Wednesday afternoon, when the identity of the ad's creator was still a mystery. "The real trouble ... is that as people get more sophisticated in producing these videos, you're going to see a very large blur in what's official and what's not."

So are we going to see a glut of political footage, and will candidates be scrambling to disassociate themselves from some or any of them? Or will this whole thing blow over? Time will tell.