Sunday, April 13, 2008

Gravel Online Ad

Mike Gravel, the former Democratic senator who attempted to win the Democratic Party's nomination for president has recently announced that he'll be seeking the Libertarian nomination. This recent Gravel video posted on YouTube encompasses for me the problems a Third Party candidate has in building a base of supporters online. It's gotten a lot of attention (over 117,000 views), obviously what you want as a third-party candidate, and presumably some viewers are now more supportive of Gravel than they were before (read the video's comment thread). But a lot of viewers seem to be watching it to make fun of Gravel. See these two blog posts by Entertainment Weekly ("a crazy old ex-Senator) and Matthew Yglesias ("a joke"), for example.

2 comments:

KB said...

It boggles my mind that this is a real campaign video. Mike Gravel clearly does not understand how to connect with a web audience via video. See E.g. The Mike Gravel Stare video.

David said...

I found it to be an effective argument for change, especially for increasing the penalties for drug use.