Some quick takes on the three campaigns’ ups and downs in YouTube-land:
* Live by the shot-glass, die by the rest-stop coffee machine? Hillary Clinton may have impressed working-class voters last week in Pennsylvania by hoisting a brew, but after a photo opportunity at a gas station in South Bend, Indiana, she was caught by MSNBC struggling to figure out how to get the coffee machine to make her some cappuccino. Shades of the first President Bush’s first encounter with a supermarket checkout scanner?
I’m not sure who added the teasing soundtrack, but this snippet could be on its way to internet notoriety, with 14,000 views in just the first two hours since its posting. (Hat tip to Americablog.) UPDATE: This video is up at 228,000 views as of Thursday 10am eastern, and is the #3 most viewed video on YouTube at the moment.
* The McCain campaign keeps diligently posting its “Behind the Scenes” videos on YouTube, but something doesn’t seem to be working. The most recent additions–from Little Rock, Arkansas; Inez, Kentucky; and Youngstown, Ohio–have the value of documenting the Senator’s recent campaign stops, but with fewer than a thousand views each I’m not sure what they’re accomplishing with them. Anyone have a clue?
* If you judge solely by YouTube views of Barack Obama’s Tuesday press conference, where he denounced AND rejected Rev. Jeremiah Wright, people don’t seem to be hungry to get Obama’s unfiltered reaction in the same way they flocked to view the full 37-minute speech he gave on race several weeks ago. So far, the press conference video posted by the Obama campaign has only earned about 48,000 views on YouTube. That could be because the cable news shows have been playing Obama’s remarks over and over again. But it’s clearly still too soon to say if the Wright controversy has run its course.
April 30, 2008