Cyber-Guerrillas Sneak up on Hillary Clinton With Apple Macintosh Parody

I have been privately warning politicians locally that they need to be aware of the impact that anonymous online activity can have on a political campaign. It seems that politicians, at least on a national level, are starting to wake up about the threats and opportunities posed by the Internet and websites like www.youtube.com.

I like to keep on top of the political scene, and while I certainly have NO dog in the Democratic presidential race, there is an interesting spat developing between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

This video below showed up on YouTube earlier this month. It is a parody of Apple Computer’s 1984 Super Bowl commercial which positioned Apple’s new computer – the Macintosh – against a charachacher of “Big Brother” from George Orwell’s book 1984. At the time, Big Brother was supposed to represent IBM.

This spot was supposed to poke fun at the reported my-way-or-the-highway Big Brother-like approach that Hillary Clinton and her supporters attempted to use to quash the Obama campaign and its encroachment on fertile Clinton fundraising circles. It probably cost less than a few hundred dollars (if anything) to produce. Yet this little anonymous video garnered the attention of CNN, Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh, and hundreds of other commentators and bloggers around the country. This video is guerilla campaigning at its finest.

However, Mrs. Clinton’s supporters were quick to respond with their own YouTube video. This video looks a lot rougher than the anti-Clinton video does, which leads me to believe it was hastily put together and posted under similar tags at YouTube to help deaden the impact to the Clinton campaign.

No matter where you stand in the political spectrum, this anonymous cyber campaign proves that political campaigns can use the Internet to create a buzz that would have cost thousands to produce in the past. It is only a matter of time until effective cyber campaign tactics such as these videos make their way into the mainstream of the local politics. If you are thinking of running for office, you might want to make certain you have a good cyber guru on your staff before you find yourself in “Big Brother’s” cross-hairs yourself.

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