e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Barack Obama + Bollywood + Video Editing Software = Genius

Friday Fun comes a day early this week, with a terrific video mashup courtesy of the CamPain2008 YouTube channel. Excellent work! It doesn’t tell us much about the political world, but that does nothing to detract from a standalone piece of genius.

Well, let me take back what I just wrote, because this video DOES tell us something significant about the political world: that it’s no longer an isolated part of our discourse, standing apart from the other endeavors with which we distract or enlighten ourselves. Politics is a part of pop culture, so a guy like Barack Obama can become a pop culture icon. Of course, you’ve got to have the right je nais se quois je ne sais quoi — can you imagine a similar piece featuring Chris Dodd or Tom Tancredo? Sure, but only with a healthy dose of irony. Via How The World Works.

Update: Jo Lee with Green Machine PR writes in to say:

A friend told me that the song is called “Chori Chori Gori Se” and it’s a love song. So, I guess it’s a take off on the Obama Girl video.

And…

A friend found a Chori Chori video with English subtitles. This song has a
lot of versions, remixes etc. It’s also in an english movie called the
Guru.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co1J2FiP1dQ

I guess Obama’s hotness transcends national boundaries

Indeed.

– cpd

9 comments December 6th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us

Email Dirty Tricks Fallout: Ron Paul Spammer Fingered, Clinton Staffer Fired

A couple of interesting scandal-related stories today: first off, as Wired and others are reporting, some excellent research by an expert with the company SecureWorks has found the spammer behind the recent barrage of unsolicited Ron Paul emails. Still unknown: who hired him.

Stewart’s detective work identified the botnet as part of a criminal operation in Eastern Europe called Reactor Mailer that offers spammers a convenient web interface to manage their illegal campaigns. The Ron Paul spam was managed by a spammer-for-hire who goes by the handle “nenastnyj.”

The political messaging was a departure for nenastnyj, and for the Reactor Mailer network, which is normally hired out by scammers offering fake watches, work at home opportunity and male enlargement products.

Was an over-eager supporter footing the bill? Or was someone managing a convoluted scheme to discredit Paul? Next, on to the Democratic side of the race, where a Hillary Clinton county chair in Iowa has lost her volunteer job for forwarding around an email accusing Obama of being a Muslim manchurian candidate bent on fomenting an Islamic revolt in the U.S. Thanks to Salon for the tip.

– cpd

Add comment December 6th, 2007 Trackback Bookmark on del.icio.us