Regarding the creative and audacious "Big Brother" ad that has the political blogosphere abuzz, I saw this eye-catcher from the SF Chronicle -- "The compelling "Hillary 1984" video recently introduced on YouTube represents "a new era, a new wave of politics ... because it's not about Obama," said Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank on politics and new media. "It's about the end of the broadcast era."
See for yourself at:
http://www.thenewhampshireprimary.com/news/2007_03_20_news_3.html
This may be an overstatement but probably not by much. I don't know if an era is ending but I believe one is beginning -- namely the era of the sophisticated attack ad with few if any fingerprints left behind, requiring a half-assed PC and a broadband connection and the viral nature of the Internet to do the heavy lifting. Some will be funny, some icnredibly vicious, and others conceptionally brilliant. This "1984" ad touches on so many themes -- a playful pop culture icon mixed with a paranoid, Orwellian theme and modern political stereotypes -- that it can't be ignored.
No campaign is prepared for this. No campaign war room rapid response team can respond to it much less comment on it. Perhaps, for now, the best defense will be to laugh at it because there may be times when the culprit will remain a total mystery. It will likely bring a whole new meaning to 'Swift Boating' candidates.
We've come a long way in the political pop culture reference department. The days of "Where's the beef?" comebacks are long gone. If only because the video moment can be turned upside down.
ADVERTISEMENTS 
