ParkRidge47 Unmasked

by Patrick Ruffini :: March 22nd, 2007 8:27 am

As about the entire Western world knows by now, ParkRidge47, creator of the paradigm-shifting “Vote Different” video, is Philip de Vellis, who until last night was employed by Blue State Digital, Sen. Obama’s web strategists.

The revelation makes sense on a variety of levels.

Just look at the narrative of the ad: Hillary’s “conversation” is really a monologue. That’s true, but it’s hardly the stuff of 1,000 GRPs. I’ve written about it. But before this video, it wasn’t a message that resonated anywhere beyond the technoconsultant class. Lo and behold, the video hailed from that select group.

Look at the closing screen with BarackObama.com, which was practically a dead giveaway that this came from someone with an interest in the Obama campaign. It was specifically designed to drive traffic to the Obama site. “BarackObama.com” is in the same typeface as the campaign logo. And it’s exactly how any Web consultant would want their client’s URL displayed at the end of an ad.

de Vellis’ video was brilliant. He has a bright future ahead of him. But the current rules of the game are such that he had to be dismissed.

Now to a more fundamental question: Was “Vote Different” too good to be true?

The short answer is yes. It tends to support the belief that “voter-generated content” is still not at the point where something this devastating can be organically produced by an independent actor. (Even the “macaca” video was taped by an opponent’s tracker, and first released to the Washington Post, not YouTube.) Sure, it’s possible that this could have been an amateur activist. But I doubt there was one amateur activist in the United States who was this obsessed with that particular message with the skills to produce something like this. That’s why people go into politics.

At the same time, let’s not kid ourselves. Professional political operatives and the online political class are slowly converging. I am on record as saying that in the closing days of the ‘04 election, guys like Geraghty, Jay Cost, and the RealClearPolitics team knew just as much about the state of the race as did I, a mid-level staffer in Bush-Cheney headquarters. Change a few slight things about where de Vellis sits, and this video can be seen in a very different light. This video wasn’t produced by an amateur, but the increasing viability of establishing oneself in the online political sphere makes it likely that future videos will be. And this unauthorized activity is certainly coming to have a decisive impact, per Fineman.

Tagged: barack obama blue state digital online politics philip de vellis video

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