Michael Brown, the man who made "Dear Mr. Obama," the viral video that is currently exploding on YouTube among supporters of John McCain and the Iraq War, is a professional film-maker with about a dozen years of experience under his belt running a company called Testimony Pictures. He's made one full-length feature, and lots of shorter videos, mostly for the Christian market. (You can find some samples of his work here and here.) But, he says, "I've never done anything like this before," and he is completely overwhelmed by the reaction to the video. Judging from a half-hour phone conversation with me, I think it's fair to say this is the real deal: a piece of voter-generated content, made by a pro but not a political hack--you can call him a pro-am--that is entering the national consciousness via the small-n network called the internet.

If you are one of the 41% of Americans who think the US invasion of Iraq was not a mistake, it looks like this video, showing a wounded veteran, Army Specialist Joe Cook, speaking in support of John McCain, could be your viral video of election 2008. As of this morning, "Dear Mr. Obama" has garnered more than 4.8 million views since being posted on August 27. Cook's heartfelt and straightforward attack on Obama for calling the Iraq war a mistake is clearly striking a chord, and my guess is this video will soon be hitting the cable channels and the mainstream media. Which raises the question: Who made it? Was this made by someone with ties to the McCain campaign? Or is it a real piece of voter-generated content?

It's one thing to read about an event in the newspaper; it's another thing to watch the event in its unexpurgated form as raw, unedited video. And as more people carry video cameras or video-enabled mobile phones, it's a safe bet that high-, medium- and even low-visibility political events are going to be recorded by participants and find their way to the web. Not every video will be a "macaca" moment, but these primary documents have their own power to persuade or affect opinions precisely because they're so organically real. Such is the case with Barack Obama's appearance yesterday at a Boca Raton synagogue

A large chunk of this presidential election is shaping up to be about tone: big change vs. little change, hope vs. experience. To see how these ideas are manifesting themselves among voters, one needs to look no further than Zazzle.com, the online site where people can design their own bumper stickers, buttons, and t-shirts.

It's been about a week since Mitt Romney's campaign launched the most interactive experiment of any we've seen come from the Republican side of the presidential field, calling on their supporters to submit 30- or 60-second TV ads, mashing up a rich array of clips, audio and photos provided by the campaign.

It's a smart way for the campaign to engage grass-roots supporters, and to also erase any memories people may have of Romney's reluctance to participate in the Republican YouTube debate. And, as a number of observers predicted, it's also a bit of a double-edged sword.

Warning: visiting the front page of Amigos de Obama will cause an enthusiastic reggaeton paean in Spanglish to Barack Obama to start playing and offer you no way to stop it. Which is why I recommend you skip right to the about page, which contains the lyrics (excerpted below) and explains how the words came to the (anonymous?) author in February after having been inspired by the candidate's "authentic" message. Gosh, where do you think he picked up that talking point?

Anyway, the interesting tech angle is that you can also download an MP3 or put the ringtone on your phone.

The first piece of voter-generated video to make a splash in Campaign 2008 has hit, and with it comes a mystery. Is "Vote Different" really the work of an amateur, a civilian if you will? Or is it a shrewd move by someone who wants to stir up trouble between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns? After all, comparing Hillary to Big Brother, droning on about her "conversation" with America and portraying her supporters as silent automatons is hardly what Obama supporters want to say about the former First Lady. Or is it?