Who is abrad2345? [UPDATE]
By David All, 07/13/2007 - 12:02pm

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Two videos have been circulating the 'sphere recently worth posting in this space and asking, who produced them?

Both ads slam Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. They were uploaded by YouTube user abrad2345 on July 3 and July 7.

1. Rudy Giuliani - Real Balls

2. Rudy Giuliani - Not A Mormon

The ads are extremely potent and make a strong use of the medium with which they're being distributed. It's too bad the bullets are pointed inward. But, I guess it is a Primary campaign...

UPDATE 3:15 PM: A tipster emails a link to a liberal blog, the Daily Background, who has a hunch.

UPDATE July 17, 8:48 AM: The daily background has updated his original blog post which fingered Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potholm noting that he has received a letter from a lawyer representing SRCP asking him to remove his blog post.

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Jimmy the Cab Driver redux.

Brilliant.

-Joe Anthony

By Janthony321 at Fri, 07/13/2007 - 3:04pm | login or register to post comments

I'm curious why you would

I'm curious why you would consider these videos 'potent'.

They seem just kind of rude and stupid to me.
But maybe I'm missing the nuance...

By ldutson at Fri, 07/13/2007 - 4:31pm | login or register to post comments

Nothing special here.

I don't understand the brilliance here. There are hundreds of candidate-slamming videos on YouTube, many with more views than either of these clips, all arguably with the same level of potence. I come to TechPresident for interesting and insightful commentary; if we're gonna talk about slamming videos I'd rather hear analysis on the recent Giuliani vs. the firefighters stuff or Edwards and Clintons comments about restricting other candidates in the debates.

By edmondthehun at Fri, 07/13/2007 - 7:42pm | login or register to post comments

Move along, folks

I agree with edmondthehun. Neither of these ads are strong enough to go viral; I can't see why the average net-head would find them compelling or entertaining enough to forward to their friends. They DO, however, look like ads made by a political hack who wishes they were good enough, and they ARE the kind of things other consultants or operatives might try to plant on sites like this one to try to get some unearned buzz. All I can say is, obviously the game is on and we're going to keep seeing stuff like this bubbling around. Caveat emptor.

By Micah L. Sifry at Sat, 07/14/2007 - 8:00pm | login or register to post comments

I disagree...

I completely disagree if you don't think these ads add value to the discussion.

Similar to the anti-Hillary "1984" spot, these ads are the first time someone has blatantly said what many Republicans talk about behind closed doors. And of course, the tactic of being "anonymous" was also employed.

On a side note, you may want to tweak the spam filter.
________________________________________
David All
The David All Group
http://davidallgroup.com
________________________________________

By David All at Sun, 07/15/2007 - 3:54pm | login or register to post comments

First of many

This is only the beginning of these kinds of ads, and they will have an impact. The value is in anonymously making statements about an opponent with impunity. Online video removes the need to balance the potential backlash of negative campaign ads with the damage that they do.

The first video posted by abrad has almost 30k views in a week. Add to that the increased engagement of people viewing online, the influence of the demographic viewing them, and the number of videos like this that can be produced and distributed at low cost, and you have a trend which will play a major role in this campaign.

Ben Homer
onlinevideowatch.com

By ben21 at Mon, 07/16/2007 - 3:45pm | login or register to post comments



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