The blogosphere has been a twitter the past 2 weeks with speculation over who was behind the anti-Hillary YouTube hit piece. Some bloggers blamed Sen. Barack Obama. A few went the Apollo moon landing was faked route and said there was a conspiracy between Sen. Obama and Apple Computer executives working in tandem to discredit Hillary. I admit I thought the piece had the odor of the rightwing and I said so.
Well, the verdict is in and Barack Obama is Not Guilty. Let me repeat, Barack Obama is Not Guilty.
It turns out the miscreant is a man named Phil de Vellis, a 47 year old, self-described “proud democrat” disgruntled with Hillary Clinton’s campaign message. Arianna Huffington broke the story. It went like this: on a Sunday afternoon in his apartment using his personal equipment (a Mac and some software), de Ville uploaded it to YouTube, and sent links around to blogs because:
The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton’s “conversation” is disingenuous. And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power.
If Obama represents a “new kind of politics’ then, the 2008 race for president represents a new kind of campaign the likes of which we haven’t seen before.
From the Left 
I never thought the Obama camp was guilty of creating the You Tube ad but like you, I thought maybe the rightwing had done it. Overall, I think it was rather well done and the ad sure made a powerful statement.
The “Apollo moon landing was faked.” LOL! The blogosphere is awash with some very odd people who think some very odd ideas.
Since I support Obama and not Hillary, I admit I was a bit troubled at the crazy posts alleging my candidate and/or his team was behind the ad. After all, Obama brings so much more to the discussion than does Hillary and he doesn’t need to to stoop to the level of creating a hit piece.
Call it a revolution where political campaigns and technology are merging and their results appear in the blogoshere. I agree with feminazi’s POV that the YouTube ad was actually quite good and it certainly got everyone’s attention.
The ad’s creator, Phil de Vellis, has a future ahead of him running media for political campaigns if he wants it. He’s very creative and the guerilla energy he brought to the ad makes him appeal to Gen X-ers. Getting them to the polls will help our candidates in races.
Poor Hillary is such a shill for Bush’s war, the military industrial complex and AIPAC that she’s clueless about her own weaknesses. Ads like the one that appeared on YouTube are unstoppable and don’t bow down to destiny. I say rock on!
What Sandy A. said. The anti-Hillary ad is new school. Everything about Hillary is old school.
I loved the anti-Hillary ad. It portrayed her followers as the lemmings they are.
Obama is the Great Black Hope for the failing liberal agenda. You libs wouldn’t give him the time of day if he were caucation and you know it. BTW, he will never be elected president.
steely dan – I think you mean “c.a.u.c.a.s.i.a.n.” And BTW, isn’t there a Klan website you can go play on? Scram.
PROPS PHIL De VELLIS!
Listen, the Clinton campaign got a lot of press press and I fear more cred thanks to this ad. That part of it sucks, but the good thing about it is, de Vellis dared to diss Sen. Clinton to an audience of people who usually don’t pay attention to politics.
The polls for Clinton aren’t great. A recent one showed more than half of people reporting they wouldn’t even consider voting for her. Giuliani is faced with his own albatross on social issues the far right is pissed off over.
So this leaves Barack Obama. Maybe he’s not as progressive on many issues as say Kucinich or Richardson but he’s a far cry better than Clinton or Guiliani and I like the fact he’s not a Beltway player. Hillary has one scary monster on national defense and Israel and speaking of Israel — they own her and her husband.
What I’m saying is a vote for Clinton is really a vote for Bush-lite. The same can be said for Guiliani. Obama is the better candidate who unifies our party rather than dividing us even more.
They won’t stop until they smear Obama and ruin him like they do everyone else.
I’m not a big fan of Obama, but I never thought he or his campaign was responsible for the ad…which I must admit I liked.
Christopher,
I love the characterization of the “Apollo moon landing being faked.” Unfortunately, even us lefties are known to have a few whack jobs in the family.
While I’m not a fan of Obama’s or Clinton’s stated positons, I thought the ad was great. I am hoping against hope that Obama’s campaign doesn’t end at the White house, yet I thoroughly enjoyed tha spot. I don’t get why you insist on labeling it “right-wing” though. You’ve certainly taken your share of shots at Clinton, yet no one would accuse you of a right leaning bias, so why is someone else taking a shot at her automatically from the right? I didn’t find anything objectionable or slimy about the ad. Did you, Christopher?