WASHINGTON - The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against
Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record).
ADVERTISEMENTPhilip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama's presidential campaign.
De Vellis said he resigned from the firm on Wednesday after he learned that he was about to be unmasked by the HuffingtonPost.com., a liberal news and opinion Internet site.
Blue State designed Obama's Web site and one of the firm's founding members, Joe Rospars, took a leave from the company to work as Obama's director of new media.
"It's true ... yeah, it's me," de Vellis said Wednesday evening.
This really revolts me. Really. I don't see why we got to do the work of Karl Rove for him.
I understand that politics are dirty, but this is insane. We are not hurting Hillary Clinton: we are hurting the image of the Democratic Party.
For God's sake, at least wait until the week before the primary.
I will hold the rest of my thoughts until more is known. In the mean time, agghhh.
Professional? no.
Savvy? no.
But that guy's going to go through the rest of his life with all kinds of super, cool-guy, techie, politics, youTube cred. For some low level dude doing tech support (or whatever he was doing) at Blue State Digital, that's probably worth losing your job.
Sometimes you just do the cool thing because it's creative, interesting and compelling. Posting it himself was pretty stupid, unprofessional, and hurtful to all Democrats, but that's why the guy got fired.
Professional? no.
Savvy? no.
But that guy's going to go through the rest of his life with all kinds of super, cool-guy, techie, politics, youTube cred. For some low level dude doing tech support (or whatever he was doing) at Blue State Digital, that's probably worth losing your job.
Sometimes you just do the cool thing because it's creative, interesting and compelling. Posting it himself was pretty stupid, unprofessional, and hurtful to all Democrats, but that's why the guy got fired.
I think Phil de Villis's video was technically and substantively brilliant.
How can you argue with (1) its popularity on YouTube, (2) the overblown reaction from the Clinton campaign, (3) the world wide media coverage, and (4) the reaction from the Obama campaign, which was typically ridiculous.
The message of the video was clear, on point, and hard hitting but it was not unfair to Clinton. It was not an attack ad, in the sense that it was false, misleading, or personal. It was political commentary at its greatest.
So, let us not confuse highly effective political speech with unfair political attack ads.
Isn't this exactly the kind of citizen expression and free speech that the First Amendment was designed to protect?
Instead of distancing itself from this video, Obama's campaign should consider hiring Phil de Villis. Certainly, Obama's campaign doesn't appear to have anyone with de Villis's talents. In this regard, the Blue State company was stupid for firing de Villis.