Obama still supplying his YouTube channel

Much has been said over the last week about how Barack Obama might use all of the social media channels he opened during his campaign in the service of his presidency. One inkling of his commitment to continuing to use them is on YouTube, where the president-elect has posted his trip to the White House and his acceptance speech. (I know he's there late at night with his laptop, hitting the "Upload" button. Sure.) There's much more he could do with it. I'll keep watching.

Fear-mongering 'til the bitter end

So, my television consumption last night was pretty much a toggle between the "SNL" election eve show and the cable news channels. Saw a version of this ad from the National Republican Trust repeatedly, no matter what I watched. The Rev. Wright fracas wasn't Obama's finest hour, but enough already.

McCain and Obama: the final YouTube posts

Thought on this final day before the election, I should stop by John McCain and Barack Obama's channels on YouTube to see what they most recently posted. On Obama's channel, you get Bruce Springsteen doing an acoustic version of "The Rising" at a rally where he introduced Obama yesterday in Cleveland.



On McCain's channel you get comments from a gun owner's convention in Minnesota.



'nough said.

Busy times at Obama's YouTube channel

So, at campaign Obama, someone stayed up late last night doing a lot of editing. First, there's the new commercial above, aimed squarely at what most pundits agree was John McCain's best line last night--that "I am not President Bush. If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." It once again trots out the Obama camp's assertion that McCain has voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time, more or less confirmed because at the end it has footage of McCain saying that himself. There's also old footage of McCain from The O'Reilly Report saying how much he supported George Bush, and six edits from last night's debate of Obama's stance on a variety of issues.

Slow times at McCain's YouTube channel

Spent a little time today checking into what the McCain and Obama campaigns have been posting on YouTube lately. Found the treacly McCain commercial above, which was posted yesterday and has about 10,500 views. Otherwise, things over at Camp McCain have been a little slow. The most recent posting before that was 6 days ago, a pretty bland talking heads commercial in which people tell why they stand with John McCain.

Who knew Droga 5 was behind "The Great Schlep"?

Maybe you've seen Sarah Silverman's video "The Great Schlep", above (not necessarily safe for work), which urges Jewish grandchildren to visit their grandparents in Florida and plead with them to vote Obama. (And withhold further visits this year unless that condition is met.) What I didn't know, until I read The New York Times this morning is that Droga5 co-produced it. Among other reasons Silverman thinks everyone should vote for Obama is that, "He's honest and he's kind and quite frankly he's probably our last hope of ending this country's reputation as the assholes of the universe." There's also a semi-serious Web site, that asks people to "Donate to the Schlep" and has some cool schlep swag (schlep schwag?).

McCain says Obama's a dangerous guy

To make this blog fair and balanced, I'll try to keep track of the most viewed YouTube videos on both presidential candidates' channels over the next few weeks. While Obama (see below) had over 134,000 views for a lengthy video about McCain's role in the Keating Five, McCain's most viewed in the last day or so is this commercial painting Obama as a dangerous guy, with 77,000 views. Not that YouTube views are a proxy for who will win the election, but interesting, nonetheless.

Obama amps up McCain and the Keating Five

I haven't exactly jumped into the election campaign on Adverganza, but some interesting stuff is popping up on the YouTube channels for both Barack Obama and John McCain. Above, what is one of the leaders among the video's the Obama campaign posted today: a 13-minute-plus video on McCain's involvement with the Keating Five of the savings and loan crisis. Shows you what a sorry state we're in that more than 135,000 people would watch a video this long, only hours after it had been posted. (There are more than 550,000 views so far for a 35-second teaser. The long form video is also posted on an Obama campaign-backed site, called keatingeconomics.com. Still amazed that Joe Biden didn't mention the Keating Five once in the vice presidential debate since that seems to be the smoking gun, if there is one, on the subject of John McCain and the economy.

The latest McCain ad knock on Obama

You dont' have to know much Spanish to get the point of this new John McCain ad, which the campaign just uploaded to YouTube. Targeted to the Hispanic market, it basically says that in his speech in Berlin, Barack Obama, didn't mention any countries in Latin America. McCain appears briefly at the end to say he approved the message.

That Hilton-Spears-Obama ad

In case you haven't seen it, thought I'd post the new John McCain commercial that manages to link Paris Hilton and Britney Spears with Barack Obama, even though, to my knowledge, Obama has never been seen exiting a limo without his panties. The strategy is interesting, to say the least, and an effective tool to target voters who question Obama's leadership abilities. But to many people, this commercial is bound to come off as so much sour grapes since it's doubtful McCain could ever draw a crowd of 200,000 people in Berlin. The problem with knocking Obama for being a celebrity is that Americans love celebrities, and, on a more serious note, many of us would like us to get our international credibility—and swagger—back. In that area, Obama looks like the guy.

Bob Garfield gets 'em talking about Obama

Looks like Bob Garfield has caused quite the dust-up over his Monday column entitled: "Why Even Hardened Racists Will Vote for Barack Obama: In the Electoral Marketplace, He Had to Pass the Halle Berry Test." Not only is it the second most read and fourth most emailed story on Ad Age so far this week, but it's gotten people pretty tied up in their underwear. Check out the comments, such as: "Bob, while your 'logic' is provocative,it has the ring of 'I know what I'm talking about because I'm a racist and I'm using this column to purge my soul'" or "But what do I know? I'm just a black male with 17 years in the 90% white advertising industry that among other things marginalizes black agencies into sub-contractor status simply because they're black, while its Gen market shops hire few if any people of color ... " Before you comment on this blog I ask you to go read Bob's column and ask yourself if he is right in saying the following:

1) Even hardened racists feel the impulse to believe they are no such thing.

2) Hence, they are always in the market for someone "acceptably black."

OK, talk amongst yourselves.