And this Los Angeles Times story provides some interesting back story on McCain's YouTube nightmare:
The video lasts just more than three minutes. But that's long enough to raise some nasty doubts about John McCain's reputation as a straight talker.
There's the Arizona senator arguing both sides of President Bush's tax cuts. Here's the supposed foreign policy wizard flubbing the simple facts about which terrorists are being trained in Iran. He's even ducking his own admission that he needs to learn more about economics.
The newsreel of McCain lowlights has zoomed up the YouTube charts in the last week, with more than 1.5 million views. “John McCain’s YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare” is the video's title, which might be dismissed as partisan hype but for one thing: It's true.
The presumed Republican presidential nominee is taking a serious drubbing on YouTube, the most popular video-sharing service on the Internet and the virtual town square for millions of new young voters.
Search "John McCain" on YouTube and you'll find the latest broadside, by Brave New Films of Culver City, and a lot more that's not good for a candidate who's built his reputation on constancy and authenticity.
There's McCain stumbling over a debate question and, worse, his cringe-worthy answer wickedly paired with the hapless Miss Teen USA contestant who went blank on a query about Americans and geography.
There's McCain seemingly on the verge of swallowing his tongue, so great is his discomfort when Ellen DeGeneres asks him why women like her shouldn't be allowed to marry other women.
Six of the top 10 videos returned by a "John McCain" YouTube search Thursday pegged the 71-year-old as inconsistent, extreme, wooden or a combination of the three. (The one clearly favorable piece came from the McCain campaign and focused on his Navy service.)
Contrast that with a YouTube search of "Barack Obama." It's a swoon fest, with virtually all of the top entries featuring the Illinois senator at his eloquent, uplifting best. The videos range from the pop-icon worship of Scarlett Johansson and John Legend & Co. in “Yes We Can” (closing in on 13 million views) to a clip of the candidate's speech on race after the explosion over the controversial sermons of his onetime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
That 37-minute political speech has logged 4.5 million views, a phenomenal number in a Web world more fixated on "American Idol" rejects and piano-playing cats.
With about five months to go before the general election, Obama will face his own uncomfortable video moments. Elsewhere in the fractured media universe, say AM talk radio, he'll feel the heat.
But that doesn't mean Republicans aren't worried about the YouTube imbalance.
"This is another example of the generation gap that the Republicans are facing. And that gap is morphing into a chasm," said Frank Luntz, a veteran GOP pollster. Yes, many of the young video viewers are already committed to Obama, but watching and even making the short films has turned the merely amused into the deeply committed.
"You activate them and engage them in a way you haven't before, up to and including on election day," Luntz said. "I think this is a critical part of Obama's appeal."
Liberal filmmakers have become as aggressive in promoting their work as in making it. Witness Brave New Films, formed by entertainment industry veterans who have enough time and financial security to devote themselves to political activism. The outfit relies on an e-mail list of more than 400,000, aggressive outreach to social networking sites and a full-time blog liaison specialist to help promote the films.
It use to be that political attack ads were produced either by the political campaigns themselves, or by political organizations that supported one particular candidate over the other (Think Swiftboat Veterans for Truth). But the explosion of YouTube has turned the political campaign commercial, and the attack ads, on its head. Now anyone with a computer, video editing software, and a huge supply of Tivoed speeches and news appearances by a candidate, can create their own political campaign commercial, upload it to YouTube, and generate some serious buzz. It is not just creating campaign commercials here with YouTube. Even more damaging are the individuals watching and recording the 24-hour news channels, waiting to catch the presidential candidate's next flub, lie, or inconsistency, and then quickly posting it on YouTube. It is there for everyone to watch, and consider.
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