George Orwell's spinning in his grave--Is Big Brother really Hillary or Obama?

What is it with the Democrats, and the Apple Macintosh Computer "1984" commercial? First a parody of the "1984" commercial, showing Hillary Clinton as Big Brother (or is that Big Mother?), was uploaded on YouTube on around March 5, 2006. It certainly created a stir within the blogosphere, as everyone wondered who created this ad? Was it the work of the Obama campaign staff--the Obama campaign said no.

Well, The Mystery Has Been Solved! The Huffington Post reports that the Hillary Clinton "1984" ad was created by Philip de Vellis, who was the Internet communications director for Sherrod Brown's 2006 Senate campaign, and who worked at Blue State Digital which provides internet consulting and communications to progressive Democratic candidates and institutions. De Vellis wrote an email to TechPresident.Com explaining his reasoning for creating this commercial:

The idea was simple and so was the execution. Make a bold statement about the Democratic primary race by culture jacking a famous commercial and replacing as few images as possible. For some people it doesn't register, but for people familiar with the ad and the race it has obviously struck a chord.

A friend suggested the idea after reading a New York Times article about the Clinton's campaign bullying of donors and political operatives after the Geffen dustup.

When The Huffington Post found out that De Vellis was the creator of the ad, they offered De Vellis to write a post on the issue:

Hi. I'm Phil. I did it. And I'm proud of it.

I made the "Vote Different" ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process. There are thousands of other people who could have made this ad, and I guarantee that more ads like it--by people of all political persuasions--will follow.

This shows that the future of American politics rests in the hands of ordinary citizens.

The campaigns had no idea who made it--not the Obama campaign, not the Clinton campaign, nor any other campaign. I made the ad on a Sunday afternoon in my apartment using my personal equipment (a Mac and some software), uploaded it to YouTube, and sent links around to blogs.

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.

Let me be clear: I am a proud Democrat, and I always have been. I support Senator Obama. I hope he wins the primary. (I recognize that this ad is not his style of politics.) I also believe that Senator Clinton is a great public servant, and if she should win the nomination, I would support her and wish her all the best.

I've resigned from my employer, Blue State Digital, an internet company that provides technology to several presidential campaigns, including Richardson's, Vilsack's, and -- full disclosure -- Obama's. The company had no idea that I'd created the ad, and neither did any of our clients. But I've decided to resign anyway so as not to harm them, even by implication.

This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed.

The mystery has been solved. It was De Vellis who created the Hillary 1984 ad:



But wait--the game has certainly changed. For now we have a Barack Obama "1984" ad, asking Americans to vote for Hillary! Check it out on YouTube:



I wonder which other presidential candidates will be added to these Apple Macintosh 1984 commercial parodies?