Images courtesy of Wikipedia and YouTube, combined through the magic of ETP photoshoppery
The internets are going a little crazy over the YouTube "Hillary 1984" attack ad — by now it's been viewed over a million times and everyone is chattering about it, even if they don't think it will actually change much (Daily Kos energetically rebuts Political Wire's Stuart Rothenberg on that point). What it changes, of course, is not necessarily which candidate a voter will choose — actually, Hillary comes off quite well in the video with her own words, she looks great, and what she says is hardly objectionable or, really, indicative of a will to subdue and enslave the masses — a video like this changes campaigns and the rules by which the game is played. It is the starkest contrast between the careful orchestrations of Hillary's initial announcement, tire-kicked and web-ready, and the renegade, wild-card contributions of activists entirely outside the approved campaign circle. It's a big game-changer, as we've said, and the old guard is picking it up. Yesterday Time's Joe Klein had this to say:
I disagreed — quietly, in a loyal and seemly fashion — with Time's Person of the Year last December. But ads like this one, which will have an impact on this campaign, indicate that I was wrong. You are, apparently, not only the Person of the Year, but also the Political Consultants of the future.
Related:
Decision 2008: YouTube Will Not Be Ignored [ETP]
