A new age of politics has arrived. The Internet, part blogosphere, part YouTube, and part Myspace/FaceBook, looks to be a force to be reckoned with.
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Unfettered interactive commentary on the blogs allows the ordinary person unprecedented opportunities to be heard. More and more one can pick up a newspaper and when reading news or analysis, read some thought or blurb credited to someone writing on a blog.
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Facebook. Myspace. In addition to judging the candidates themselves, we are now able to assess them by their ability to organize and create online content and profiles. Cyber candidates, if you will.
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And then there’s YouTube — allowing anyone with an Internet connection to view videos– videos made with commonplace equipment and uploaded to the ‘Net with the greatest of ease. Videos that are available to the entire world. Videos that can be linked to and pasted directly to any blog. Videos that, even though brand new on the scene, have already demonstrated the power to make and destroy candidacies.
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Remember George Allen? He used to be considered a top contender for the conservative slot in the GOP ’08 prez sweeps. Then he used a seemingly made up word directed at a heckler with a video camera– "macaca"– and, well, the rest is history. The video swept across the Internet, and George Allen was toast. A similar, yet not as fatal, situation has dogged Mitt Romney. The numerous YouTube videos floating around of him debating Ted Kennedy in 1994, defending abortion and dissing Ronald Reagan have undoubtedly cost him a great deal of conservative support he might otherwise have gained.
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Closer to home, it appeared that one-time frontrunning NH Democratic Party chairman candidate Ray Buckley had come back from the dead and would win the seat as a write-in. Then a YouTube featuring him and some rather unflattering footage made its appearance. Once again, some Dems are rethinking their support.
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And now, enter the "Hillary 1984" unauthorized (supposedly) pro-Obama clip. Not that I’m gonna vote for Obama, mind you, but this video is
ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!
Click here to watch it. It really is a different sort of political ad, for sure. Will it have an effect on Hillary’s presidential ambitions? Will it turn into votes for Obama? Carla Marinucci has a great piece in the San Francisco Chronicle discussing this latest wrinkle in modern politics. She quotes a veteran adman in the article:
the success of "Hillary 1984" means that now "every candidate will have to worry about some guy with a video camera and a Mac being able to do whatever he or she wants."
Excellent! I have laptop. I have a video camera. Count me in!