Back in March of last year, a video mashup shook up the political scene, when some anonymous tech sleuth had the audacity to attack Hillary Clinton. The video was posted at YouTube under the name "ParkRidge47," a sly reference to Hillary Clinton's childhood home town. The message: Hillary Clinton is Big Brother, or at least, Hillary Clinton is having an Orwellian "one-way" conversation with America -- and one candidate, a-la-Apple Computers classic 1984 Superbowl ad, can change that. It closed with a scroll directing people to the website of Hillary's chief rival, BarackObama.com.

Cue the video in the event that you were not one of the 4,000,000+ viewers who watched it:

After the unmasking of the video-masher, the popular thinking was that the 2008 elections were going to be fraught with these kind of new, or modern media, attacks. To my knowledge, there hasn't been another viral video that has "tipped," (as Malcolm Gladwell might put it), at least not the same way the Vote Different video did. Instead, I think we've seen a proliferation of campaign-based web videos. Nothing challenged Phil de Vellis's little masterpiece.

At least, that is, until about two weeks ago. Cut to the new video:

This video too was posted by an anymous YouTuber, though, to be fair, it appears "keithhib" is a McCain fan. No surprise there--I think last weekend's debates showed that Mitt and John aren't the best of friends. Self-disclosure: I find myself squarely in the McCain column as well.

Now maybe some of you don't remember Max Headroom (see YouTube clips here). Wikipedia has this on file, " artificial intelligence, known for his surreal wit and stuttering, distorted, electronically sampled voice."

You get it? Max Headroom, the contrived marketing device is Mitt Romney, or something like that. Now leaving aside whether Romney has flipped or "evolved" on several issues--the video doesn't really hit that note--one fact is certain: Mitt has probably outspent most of the other GOP candidates on advertising. So there's a certain guerilla nature to this video.

Now for some analysis: the Max Headroom / Mitt Romney mashup isn't perfect, in fact, it leaves something to be desired. The "Vote Different" ad was more than a minute in length; the "Max Romney" vid is half that.

Is this video in any way effective? Will it go viral like the Hillary-1984 mashup? If not, why not? Do the Romney folks have anything to be worried about? Will a lot of people just be saying: that's cute, but so what? I'm interested to see what TechRepublican readers think.

This story begins two days ago in South Carolina, where on an impromptu campaign stop a woman asks Senator McCain a fairly, shall we say, pointed question. The woman's question was this: "How do we beat the bitch?" Pan, zoom, and in the crosshairs is a candidate facing a potentially explosive situation. Cue the YouTube video. (Let me say upfront that I'm a McCain-booster, and am enthusiastically supporting his candidacy).

Now, we all recall the "macaca moment", and in fact, that memory keeps many GOP communications directors on edge, I'm sure. And it should. The Allen campaign's ineffectual response has become emblematic in many ways of the understanding deficit on the Right when it comes to the Internet and new media.

Back to the tale of the tape: McCain reacted with his trademark humor. Aided by a man in the audience who asked whether the woman had meant his ex-wife, McCain used the question to make a savvy point: he is beating Hillary in several national polls. (See this PDF from the campaign for specifics.)

In the hours that followed the event, the video surfaced on fairly liberal Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo, in truncated form. Overnight, the video went from Internet obscurity to the cable news circuit, and even made the rounds on many local news channels.

Enter CNN's Rick Sanchez, and his shameless attempt to turn the video of McCain's reply into a "gotcha" moment. Sanchez seemed to think McCain didn't do enough to defend Mrs. Clinton. He even went so far as to get Whoopi Goldberg on the phone--who actually weighed in with a modest defense of McCain. Sanchez wasn't having any of it; he was unabashedly trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. (Note: for more on this strange strain of logic, see this inane post at Daily Kos: Cindy McCain Is A Bitch)

Some of you may remember that the term "Clinton News Network" came about in the 90s. Leaving aside that gobs of Time Warner PAC money has flowed into Hillary Clinton's campaign, CNN on its own merits isn't held in high regard by too many conservatives. McCain's Camp undoubtedly recognized this, and dutifully prepared a response.

In what must be record time after the last GOP debate, McCain's campaign cut an ad featuring McCain's major applause line of the evening (See: Tied Up). It's that bit of brilliance that sets up this next move.

Yesterday, the campaign fired a volley back at CNN in a letter to supporters from Campaign Manager Rick Davis using the CNN attack as a fundraising peg. The letter itself became newsworthy, as papers like The Hill and others began reporting not just on the South Carolina McCain-supporter's choice of words, but also on the looming CNN vs. McCain dustup.

In a post at Red State, Soren Dayton amplified an interesting point: "CNN Goes Where Whoopi Won't." Adam C. also filed a report mentioning the CNN attack on Sen. McCain. Then came an AOL poll showing 67% of readers believed McCain "did a good job answering the question."

Just as blogger's like John Hinderaker at PowerLine were speculating about the meaning of McCain's comeback, the CNN story took another turn.

Enter Wolf Blitzer and The Situation Room. Blitzer delved into the McCain counterattack, the highlight of which was his guest Howard Kurtz succinctly stating that Rick Sanchez was way off base in his earlier comments. Sanchez tried to come back last night with a brief retort, but it was weak at best. Today, Whoopi brought the question back up for discussion, on The View, no less--but again, there she was offering a defense of John McCain.

So what can we conclude (besides that McCain's campaign has a lot of life left in it, and appears, in fact, to be on the rise)? Well, for starters, it's refreshing to see a GOP campaign have it "together" on Internet strategy and new media. Sure, you can argue McCain didn't have it so tough with that question. But imagine for a moment how some of the other candidates would have answered it...

My point is this: McCain and his campaign adroitly turned a potentially damaging "YouTube Moment" into a terrific fundraising/earned media opportunity. To be fair, they were aided by a sensationalist CNN anchor who appears to be trying to reach Keith Olbermann status. I'm sure there'll be plenty more "gotcha" YouTube moments ahead in the Presidential race. But at the end of the day, how many campaigns will successfully weather the storm, and indeed, come out on top, as McCain did?

This seems to be what a lot of so-called "Fred Heads" have been waiting for. Fred's latest web ad mashes up his role in the Hunt for Red October with his presidential run. I'll reserve my thoughts for the comment thread; I'm eager to hear what others think.

Okay, I have to admit out of all the GOP candidates, I've been following Mitt Romney the least. To be fair, I usually drag all of the campaign emails and updates to my "junk mail" file with no mercy. Why? Almost without fail, they're the same tired pitches for donations, or highlighting some news article that I don't care about.

But today, I got an email from Team Mitt that I spent a few minutes reading. Then I did the unthinkable--I clicked one of the links. Here's what the pitch was:

Dear Patrick,

Once in a while an opportunity comes along that sounds too good to be true. And often there’s a catch…

This is not one of those times.

We want you to make a new official television advertisement. Yes, we are serious.

Your ad could feature Mitt’s biography, his family, his record as Governor of Massachusetts, or his agenda for a stronger America. In fact, your ad can have practically any theme as long as it supports the campaign creatively and responsibly.

How does it work? We provide the photos, videos and audio clips to get you started. You can add your own multimedia if you’d like. Then just cut, splice and edit until your heart’s content, using easy and free online tools. Everything you’ll need is available at this new site:

www.MittRomney.com/YourAd

The deadline for ad submissions is September 17th, so you can even get the family involved over Labor Day weekend.

After a public vote, the winner’s video will hit the airwaves as an official campaign TV ad in conjunction with the massive Rally for Romney at the end of September.

You’ve seen how the professionals do it. Let’s see what you can do!

Roll camera,

The eStrategy Team, Romney for President

Could this be the major departure from scripted online campaigns that we've been looking for from a front-runner? There wasn't even a pitch to donate!!!

For the time being, I'll withold judgment--and let you decide whether Team Mitt's "ad contest" is anything more than a cheap marketing ploy. But regardless of that result, Team Mitt finally incensed me to read an email, and "click through." That in and of itself is huge.

Mitt doesn't have it. Neither does Rudy, or McCain. Heck, many of you may never have gotten hip to using PayPal either--even though it's an option often used to support blogs (including this one), and oh, yeah--paying for items on eBay!

The Fred File carried this note announcing it as an option to contribute: "Over the last two months, many Friends of Fred have written to us asking for options to contribute to the committee that do not require you to enter your credit card information on our site..." Fred's web team has integrated the button into the donation form, so instead of using the radial button for Discover, MC, or Visa--you select "PayPal."

To date, I'm not aware of PayPal being used in very many GOP Congressional or Presidential races. In fact, my experience has been that it's used more often in "down the ticket" races. Why? While other services might build fancy forms, the objective of sending/receiving cash is more easily accomplished via PayPal. Anyone who's used the service knows that it's simply a matter of signing in, and clicking send. Sure, there's a small fee (about 10% per transaction), and initial account setup, but its ease of use for both sender and receiver trumps both (especially for small sums).

As David All and others have been noting all summer, the GOP is lagging behind in online fundraising. Some, like Patrick Ruffini, have suggested that it's both a matter of buy-in, and of having the right pitch (i.e. read his free advice to McCain).

But has anyone considered that it might be as simple as having the right payment option? Eliminate the online hurdles for people to jump over--and maybe, just maybe--the floodgates will open.

For what it's worth I just sent Fred $25 via PayPal, and will probably be inclined to do it again. Why? Because I use the service all the time and have come to rely on it for moving small amounts over the net. Five bucks here, twenty bucks there, it begins to add up. If Fred has any luck, he will reap the dividends of being one of the first GOP Presidential contenders to accept contributions by PayPal. Of course, he'd have to get in the race first ;)

P.S. The Founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel (now a venture capitalist) originally saw PayPal as having great implications for politics.

...No, he hasn't announced, but Fred Thompson's exploratory campaign did just release Imwithfred.com 2.0. Expectations are high for Thompson's site, perhaps higher than other candidates, as all of the Fred Head's are eager to get information on campaign developments.

To be sure, ImwithFred.com 1.0 wasn't meeting the needs of anyone currently tuned into the race. The "Fred File" blog was infrequently updated, and there were very few other interactive tools on the site, outside what I'd call the standard "organizing" and "fundraising" widgets.

You can read the campaign's vision for ImwithFred.com 2.0 in a post from today.

Here are a few of the new features that I noticed right off the bat:

1. Streaming audio/video. In addition to a welcome video on the main page, there is also a collection of a/v from the campaign trail archived in the "FredCast" section.

2. A Newsroom. Stories from around the web mentioning Fred are accumulated, as are Fred's speeches, commentaries, and press releases.

3. Action center. A "Volunteer HQ" looks promising, much more advanced than anything I think I've seen by the announced candidates -- and with more promised and immediate functionality than McCainSpace.

Hopefully more features will be forthcoming, as Fred continues to roll out his campaign. Which brings me to my next point: Fred must be awfully close to getting in the race with all of these new features...anyone want to take bets on his official announcement date?

UPDATE 1:55 PM: The NYT Caucus blog is linking to this post.

As has been discussed here before, socnets are becoming an increasingly important part of political campaigns online outreach. To date, I have not seen any study or statistics regarding the political makeup of either MySpace or Facebook.

But I did catch this interesting article at FreeRepublic.com, "Class War: MySpace vs. Facebook." If the trend examined in the article is true, advertisers, along with campaigns, may well need to adjust their online strategy. Of course, this so-called "trend" could be nothing more than the flavor of the week.

As an online activist with profiles at both sites, I do have to say I'm beginning to prefer Facebook, mainly due to it's flexibility and innovative spirit. Some of the new political "applications" on Facebook are especially promising. More on that soon.

Last Wednesday (June 27), Fred Thompson filed this blog post at the "Fred File", his official campaign blog. (Note: the letters FDT are Thompson's initials, Fred Dalton Thompson.)

Besides attracting a fair number of comments on each post, Thompson is also using podcasts to 1) reach out to voters and 2) communicate his message, and in this case, a response, directly out to the country.

Fred's Latest Podcast

From the sounds of the audio, it was recorded over the phone, perhaps using Skype or the likes. In any event, yet another tool in FDT's portfolio of Internet tools. With such a great radio voice, and a direct style, these podcasts are sure to please--let's hope the campaign keeps them up.

Off the top of my head, there are at least three big conservative “online communities.” RedState.com, HotAir.com, and TownHall.com. I’ll begin with RedState.com, which was bought out by Human Events’ parent company, Eagle Publishing, last fall. The site has diaries, many of which get front-paged, and allows users to recommend posts from the community. This allows content to get bumped up to the “Recommended Blogs” list featured prominently on the upper right of every page. There’s also a “Red Hot” section where editors of the site can post notes about hot topics. I understand the site may be undergoing some upgrades, and a 2.0 version could be rolled out soon. Hopefully we’ll see more than just token new media widgets.

Next, there’s HotAir.com. Some might question whether this is an actual community, or just a news aggregator and blog. I could have picked TheVanguard.org or PowerLineBlog.com’s Forum feature, but HotAir.com really is unique. Founded by Michelle Malkin, the site gets a huge amount of traffic, and basically digs into all of the hot issues of the day – allowing registered users and contributors to “vent”.

More than anything else, HotAir.com is a content driven site – almost every post is link-heavy and contains a video. Malkin and her co-contributors track stories, make news, and even create a lot of original scores, like this recent music video on jihadism. But you have to register for comments, and registration has seemingly been closed for eons. Content can also get lost quickly, as frequent postings tend to move things out of 600 X 800 pixel view. HotAir is excelling at aggregating links – but in a different way than RealClearPolitics or Matt Drudge's site.

Finally, let’s explore the real mother of them all, TownHall.com. This site, previously run by the Heritage Foundation, was bought out by Salem Media in the spring of 2006. Since then, the site’s masthead has grown exponentially. It boasts video, talk radio show podcasts, blogs, and content from leading national opinion writers.

Talkers Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, and Michael Gallagher are all on-board – as are several other up and coming conservative personalities who write for the site. My favorite is the “Funnies” section, where conservative editorial cartoons are featured. The site also has book & movie reviews, an issues page, and an “action center”. I’ll return to that last feature in a moment. Other than GOP.com, and several state GOP sites, I’m guessing it’s one of the most frequently visited sites by activists.

So what’s wrong with all of the above sites? Well, maybe nothing. To be sure, each of them has individual strengths and weaknesses. RedState.com has advanced up the activist path in recent months. Erick Erickson and others at the site have been on a weeks long crusade to get Rep. Ken Calvert sacked from a committee assignment. Previously, the site really didn’t mobilize or activate users all that much. Interactivity was limited to comments and diary posting.

Now, on RedState’s front-page, editors are stirring up all kinds of causes, from killing the immigration reform bill to giving Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) the boot. But of all three major sites, in my mind, only TownHall.com comes close to the ideal “activist community”. They do this by offering ways for users to not only interact with each other and content providers (i.e. call talk radio), but also by mobilizing readers.

To briefly conclude, in the world of interest group politics, the online Republican Army is often regarded to be not as angry or active as the Left. Why? I would argue because there isn’t one site, or cause, that unites us all. Sure, we have national bloggers like Instapundit, and PowerLine, among others, reporting on events and news, but we lack a firebrand MoveOn.org of the Right to coordinate it all. It may be the aspiration of groups like TheVanguard.org and RightMarch.com to fulfill this mission, but so far, neither seems to be doing it very effectively.

MoveOn.org boasts 3 million registered users. Recent posts here and elsewhere have speculated about the likely constellation of online activists on the right. But even if we know how many of us there are in cyberspace, the question remains: how do we translate that into action. How do we get the now Democratically-controlled Congress to listen? Even bigger, how do we mobilize and activate our users and digital activists?

Contributors here and elsewhere are addressing that question with increased interest. But to truly make a difference, we have to get better organized and provide activists the tools they need to be effective. One glimpse of hope on the horizon is eConseravative.org (I’d urge all of you to be there for the beginning by signing up for the newsletter today). Others will surely be coming. Or will they? The conventional wisdom is that if Hillary's the nominee--the Rightroots will take the Internets by storm. We'll see about that.