McCain's Web gap is showing: Taking a serious drubbing on YouTube

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: ON THE MEDIA
McCain's Web gap is showing
The candidate is taking a serious drubbing on the most popular video-sharing service on the Internet -- and the virtual town square for millions of young voters.
By James Rainey, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 30, 2008

The video lasts just more than three minutes. But that's long enough to raise some nasty doubts about John McCain's reputation as a straight talker. There's the Arizona senator arguing both sides of President Bush's tax cuts. Here's the supposed foreign policy wizard flubbing the simple facts about which terrorists are being trained in Iran. He's even ducking his own admission that he needs to learn more about economics.

The newsreel of McCain lowlights has zoomed up the YouTube charts in the last week, with more than 1.5 million views. “John McCain’s YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare” is the video's title, which might be dismissed as partisan hype but for one thing: It's true. The presumed Republican presidential nominee is taking a serious drubbing on YouTube, the most popular video-sharing service on the Internet and the virtual town square for millions of new young voters.

Search "John McCain" on YouTube and you'll find the latest broadside, by Brave New Films of Culver City, and a lot more that's not good for a candidate who's built his reputation on constancy and authenticity.

There's McCain stumbling over a debate question and, worse, his cringe-worthy answer wickedly paired with the hapless Miss Teen USA contestant who went blank on a query about Americans and geography.

There's McCain seemingly on the verge of swallowing his tongue, so great is his discomfort when Ellen DeGeneres asks him why women like her shouldn't be allowed to marry other women.

Six of the top 10 videos returned by a "John McCain" YouTube search Thursday pegged the 71-year-old as inconsistent, extreme, wooden or a combination of the three. (The one clearly favorable piece came from the McCain campaign and focused on his Navy service.)

Contrast that with a YouTube search of "Barack Obama." It's a swoon fest, with virtually all of the top entries featuring the Illinois senator at his eloquent, uplifting best. The videos range from the pop-icon worship of Scarlett Johansson and John Legend & Co. in “Yes We Can” (closing in on 13 million views) to a clip of the candidate's speech on race after the explosion over the controversial sermons of his onetime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. That 37-minute political speech has logged 4.5 million views, a phenomenal number in a Web world more fixated on "American Idol" rejects and piano-playing cats....

"This is another example of the generation gap that the Republicans are facing. And that gap is morphing into a chasm," said Frank Luntz, a veteran GOP pollster. Yes, many of the young video viewers are already committed to Obama, but watching and even making the short films has turned the merely amused into the deeply committed. "You activate them and engage them in a way you haven't before, up to and including on election day," Luntz said. "I think this is a critical part of Obama's appeal."...

***

Online film has lowered the price of entry to political discourse and pumped new life into an ossified communications universe....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-onmedia30-2008may30,0,1308565.story

[OKDem08]

1. From my observations,

it's not just McCain but Republicans in general take a beating in the comments section when they place a video on you tube. It appears to me that the GOP is losing an entire generation.

[Bob Dobbs]

2. With good reason.

Kids are not stupid about the future and the implications of the willful ignorance of rethuglican politricks.

[DCKit]

3. The CIA (Cocaine Import Agency) is going into overdrive.

There is no way McInsane can be elected if even half the (D)s are awake that day, so be careful what you drink, and where you drink it, the night before.

Just sayin'