Political Freelancers Use Web to Join the Attack
By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: June 29, 2008
CULVER CITY, Calif. — The video blasted across the Internet, drawing political blood from Senator John McCain within a matter of days.
Produced here in a cluttered former motel behind the Sony Pictures lot, it juxtaposed harsh statements about Islam made by the Rev. Rod Parsley with statements from Mr. McCain praising Mr. Parsley, a conservative evangelical leader. The montage won notice on network newscasts this spring and ultimately helped lead Mr. McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, to reject Mr. Parsley’s earlier endorsement.
In previous elections, an attack like that would have come from party operatives, campaign researchers or the professional political hit men who orbit around them.
But in the 2008 race, the first in which campaigns are feeling the full force of the changes wrought by the Web, the most attention-grabbing attacks are increasingly coming from people outside the political world. In some cases they are amateurs operating with nothing but passion, a computer and a YouTube account, in other cases sophisticated media types with more elaborate resources but no campaign experience.
So it was with the Parsley video, which was the work of a 64-year-old film director, Robert Greenwald, and his small band of 20-something assistants. Once best known for films like “Xanadu” (with Olivia Newton-John) and the television movie “The Burning Bed” (with Farrah Fawcett), Mr. Greenwald shows how technology has dispersed the power to shape campaign narratives, potentially upending the way American presidential campaigns are fought.
Mr. Greenwald’s McCain videos, most of which portray the senator as contradicting himself in different settings, have been viewed more than 5 million times — more than Mr. McCain’s own campaign videos have been downloaded on YouTube.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/us/politics/29opposition.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1214691600-C0r1i3xLf+4Lb7q87514ow
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