techPresident - "Vote Different" Was Funded - Comments

What blatnat lies

donsingleton — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:30:22 -0400

Kerry certainly did not like the swiftboat adds, and in some cases some people remembered things one way and others a different way, but I id not se aeny blatant lies in them

Hillary wasn't swiftboated

Joshua Levy — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:12:20 -0400

I agree with cfinnie that an amateur could have produced the video. I'm a video editor myself, and I have friends who could easily create the video -- it just takes a little knowledge of Adove After Effects or a similar program.

But I don't agree with the comparison to the swift boat ads; those ads contained outright fabrications about John Kerry's service in Vietnam, for political gain. This ad, while propagandistic, contains no blatant lies like the swift boat ads did. If we find out that the 1984 ad was funded by partisans, then it will share that with the swift boat ads, but the content isn't the same. Hillary wasn't swiftboated.

Well-funded, but not professional

cfinnie — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 12:08:35 -0400

As a professional designer friend of mine pointed out, no real professional would do this. When I asked her why, she threw the question back at me. Though not a video expert, I am a professional writer and so work in a similar field. My response? "Steve Jobs would sue my ass off." That's especially true for the new Obama one that actually uses the Apple logo. As a professional in the field, I couldn't afford to do something that infringes on the copyright of a company as big and lawsuit-prone as Apple.

So, while I do believe somebody paid for it, I think you hit the nail on the head near the end of your post. When the whole thing is finally exposed, I expect to find well-heeled Republicans behind it--just as we finally found them behind the Swift Boat attacks. They found some bright young kid who had the skills to find the video and manipulate it. Had their lawyers tell the kid what to do. And put it out there to wreck havoc.

The chair of the Democratic Central Committee the next county over sent me an email last night from the local Republicans. It urges all Republicans to watch the Hillary 1984 video. He and I believe the Republicans want the video to vilify both Clinton and Obama. They claim it "aggressively points out the weaknesses and hypocrisy of the Clintons." It also puts Obama in a bad light as tolerant of political sleeze. It pits the two Democratic frontrunnres against each other. And paints the Democrats as dangerously divided--perhaps too much so to govern. What Republican wouldn't have been happy to finance that?

"Vote Different" Was Funded

Zack Exley — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:59:36 -0400

Why is the "Vote Different" creator still in hiding? There can only be one reason: the project was funded by a well known Obama supporter, or someone with very close and public connections to the Obama campaign. Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that the Obama campaign had anything to do with it.

But so far most of the discussion of the ad has put up a picture of an independent video person working at home on their Mac in their spare time. But that's just not plausible. Such a character would be claiming his or her reward right now, boosting his or her career and having a great time doing the media rounds. And, also telling: the ad maker knew exactly what election law lines not to cross, stopping just short of express advocacy. Why didn't the ad say, "Vote Obama"? So, when did independent YouTube video hackers get access to their own election law attorneys?