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NARR: Call it Election 2006 Youtube-Style. Launched last December by three twenty-year-olds, the video sharing website is experiencing its first election season, and negative ad's and political blunders have high viewing numbers, especially among younger voters. When incumbent Republican Senator George Allen from Virginia called his opponents supporter a macaca - a racial slur that means monkey - the political gaffe found a home on Youtube.com.
AMBI: "So welcome, let's give a welcome to macaca here. Welcome to America, and the real world of Virginia."
NARR: And parodies of the blunder have also been posted, like the Macaca Blues song...
AMBI: "...I normally vote Republican, but I don't know what to do. I got me a big old case of the macaca blues..."
NARR: Anyone can post videos on Youtube, free, and it's become so popular that the internet search engine Google recently bought the company for 1.65 billion dollars. The site archives footage that may have lost its newsworthiness for TV or print. Leticia Remauro, who worked as a New York Republican Campaign manager for President Bush in 2004, says that Youtube attracts voters because of the negative ads that continue to run.
ACT: "An entity like that is probably prime for negative campaigning. That's probably a great place to get out some video, some negative stuff on an opponent because it will carry. And we all know that negative stuff is sexy."
NARR: And negative political videos do get lots of hits, like this one criticizing Tom Kean Jr., the Republican challenger to the New Jersey senate seat...
AMBI: "Tom Kean Jr. follows George Bush on Iraq, Kean Jr. says he would have voted for the Iraq War, and we should stay the Bush administration's course with no end or victory in sight."
NARR: But will Youtube.com change the political landscape? Todd Gitin, Columbia University Professor of Journalism and Sociology, says it's too early to tell.
ACT: "Youtube probably intensified the awareness that...of the campaigns, how they're being seen and probably lends itself to inflammatory polarization, but over time it might also persuade some of the advertisers that they need to cool it. It's not clear how it's going to play out."
NARR: But at least for the present moment, voters can use Youtube to find the good, the bad, and the ugly from candidates. Matt Kozar, Columbia Radio News