Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Chicago Trib columnist Clarence Page looks at the Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama/YouTube incident and comments that there may be a "new media," but politics is still "the same old game." I'm not so sure he's right. Here's a bit of what Page had to say...

The "Hillary 1984" clip had unusual impact for one simple reason: It accomplished what it set out to do. It was clever, well-crafted and it delivered its message with a "Pow!" High impact.

But, was anyone's mind changed by it? Did anyone who was prepared to vote for Clinton decide, after watching this ad, to switch his vote? That's hard to say because no one knows. At best, the ad was an electronic version of an editorial cartoon. It was clever, amusing, provocative and even polarizing. But that's about the limits of the power any of us opinion-mongers have.

That's not to say that YouTube or blogs sometimes don't make a difference. The video clip of former Sen. George Allen, for example, flinging his weird "macaca" slur at a researcher for his opposition undoubtedly greased the slide that cost the Virginia Republican his Senate seat last year. But that clip wasn't opinion. It was factual reporting. That's another inescapable truth of the new media: Facts still matter.

And the central fact of the Obama/Clinton/YouTube incident is that campaigns don't have near as much control over the message and events as they used to. An independently produced "ad" on YouTube drove the campaign news cycle and forced first the Clinton campaign and then the Obama campaign to respond.

Sure, Page is right, the anti-Hillary ad likely didn't sway any votes. But he's wrong that the game hasn't changed. The game has changed, and in a big way. Don Surber is closer to the facts on this than is Clarence Page...

Surber says that Hillary 1984 ad demonstrated how technology like YouTube "is making McCain-Feingold obsolete," referring to the campaign finance reform law. Writes Surber:

That "1984" ad that Barack Obama ran against Hillary showed that a presidential candidate need not spend millions on TV ads. Just put together a good one cheap (political parodies do not violate copyrights) on YouTube and watch the sparks fly.

Obama's campaign claims it wasn't involved in the YouTube attack. Well, if it wasn't, then that shows how the game has changed - as an independent YouTube ad designed to help Obama's campaign ultimately nicked it instead. And if the campaign was somehow involved in the YouTube attack on Hillary, well, it shows how the technology has changed the game of television advertising.

Either way, and in fact in both ways, the game has changed.