Ever wanted to be able to show someone exactly how a "meme" moves across the web in real-time? Anthony Hamelle of Linkfluence has posted a video doing exactly that. He zeroes in on two political videos that made a big splash at the height of summer: the McCain campaign's successful viral attack on Barack Obama as a "Celeb," which compared him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in the wake of his European tour and scored well over a million views; and Paris Hilton's snarky response, which ultimately overtook McCain with something over three million views.

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?

While network TV has cut back its coverage of the national political conventions to an hour a night, and within that hour we often get more of the network "stars" bloviating than straightforward speechifying from the convention floor, the internet is, as my colleague Andrew Rasiej likes to say, "the Tivo of our times." A glance back at the speeches and media moments in Denver and their YouTube views suggests a couple of episodes must have strong word-of-mouth, since people are going to watch the stuff they heard about but missed.

t's Friday, which means it's time for our favorite new political videos the week. From Kosovo minefields to lobbyist lollypops to "fist bumps of hope," we've got it all.

What follows is the first-person account of the making of the viral video of Pastor John Hagee that precipitated Senator John McCain's decision to renounce Hagee's endorsement of his candidacy. Wilson is a co-founder of the E Pluribus Media blogger collective, and blogs at Talk To Action. This is his story, the story of a citizen journalist who changed the course of the race. It is reposted with his permission. The editors.

It seems like this was the week of dueling racial memes, with controversy swirling around videos of former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton backer, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Obama's church, and lots of commentary by interested bystanders. We'll get to those, but first some lighter fare.

Mike Gravel throws another rock, sort of; Mitt Romney gets kicked on his way down; Sean Hannity sideswipes Obama; Rosemary Watson prays that Hillary gets to the White House; Ron Paul is a virus?!; Team Clinton shoots an air ball; and Will.i.am says Yes.I.can.

Can. we. stop. with. the. wierd. punctuation?

The sudden interest in Obamagirl's Crush on Barack music video provides a great opporunity to talk once more about the nature of internet communications. As I have often argued, the net is a chaotic message environment precisely because it enables anyone, as long as they have access to a wired computer, to post their own ideas and opinions. And this content has no editor other than the poster.

So, just as the 1984 video before swept through the campaign news cycle, the Obamagirl video may be starting its sweep now.

But what does this mean for the candidate?

...before 2008 is over.)

(Ed. Note: This post is multimedia heavy and can best be viewed here.)

It's Friday, and it's my birthday, so I'm going to dig deep and give away five creative ideas I'd be working on if I were working for a Presidential campaign. Would they go viral? Well, you never know unless you try. And that, my friends, is the beauty of having a free distribution service.

And one more thing, you'll note that all of these videos are POSITIVE. Video can be used to do something other than tear down the other guy.

Let's open up this bag of fun...