YouTube news and politics editor Steve Grove has a great interview up on YouTube with Phil de Vellis (a.k.a. "ParkRidge47") on how and why he made the now famous "Vote Different"/Hillary 1984 video. Some quick highlights:

de Vellis explains that he chose to mash-up Apple's 1984 ad because he's a big fan of the company, plus he had recently re-read the book and thought that by working from their ad he'd get interest not just from political folks but also Apple fans.

He also says that he was "stunned" by all the attention the video has gotten, and that he was "basically a spectator" after he posted it and was "fascinated" to watch how it spread. He gives a nice shout-out to Adam Conner, an Obama-blogger, who posted a great examination of the video's viral course on MyDD. And we're of course tickled that he thinks this humble site has been doing a good job of analyzing what it all means.

de Vellis also gives a great defense of the tradition of anonymous political speech in America, in explaining why he didn't post the video using his real name. The Federalist Papers, he notes, were written under pseudonyms, as was Joe Klein's book Primary Colors. Even George Orwell is a pseudonym, for the writer Eric Blair. But he admits "the system worked" in eventually outing him, and he seems completely at ease with that.

I've been in touch with de Vellis and am really impressed with how thoughtful and informed he is about the whole vortex of forces he is at the center of. Voter-generated content couldn't have a better "spokesperson" (if such a thing is even possible). Kudos!

UPDATE: PoliticsTV has a lot more here. de Vellis says that he wanted to show that a one-way conversation in politics isn't enough, that politicians have to interact with their audience.