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2008 and counting: Fire Fighters’ video building audience |
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By The Hill Staff
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Posted: 07/27/07 05:34 PM [ET] |
About 250,000 people have watched the 13-minute video produced by the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) attacking former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) for his record before and after Sept. 11, 2001.
An IAFF official said this week that the video has registered 200,000 hits on YouTube, adding that for a viewing to register, a person has to watch the entire clip.
Additionally, about 40,000 have watched it on ABC News’s website, and a few thousand more have watched it from the Associated Press link.
“So while a few reporters may have read Rudy’s voluminous, academic pre-buttal to our heart-wrenching video, I guarantee you 250,000 people haven’t read it,” one official said.
The official said the interest has been driven largely by bloggers. There are 3,160 external pages linking to the IAFF’s www.rudy-urbanlegend.com website.
Giuliani’s campaign dismissed the video before it was released July 11, reaching out to former firefighters who support the ex-mayor’s candidacy.
— Sam Youngman
Lazio reflects on his stage moment with ClintonFormer Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.) told The Hill this week that he doesn’t have the credibility to offer advice to any of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential rivals.
Lazio, who ran against Clinton in the Senate race in 2000, drew a lot of attention during one of the debates when he left his podium and was described by several media accounts as threatening his opponent.
“The whole sense [that] that debate was pivotal was kind of [an] urban legend,” Lazio said this week, adding that he generally refrains from commenting on Clinton’s campaign.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would not have approached her at the podium,” Lazio said. “But I think it had a lot to do with … the way it was characterized afterward.”
Lazio said that characterization was a “reflection of her communications team, which every member of her opponents’ [teams] are acutely aware of.”
— Sam Youngman
Obama looking for Fred’s supporters?There are a lot of places on the World Wide Web a presidential candidate would be well-advised to avoid when placing ads.
When The Hill clicked over to www.fredheads.com this week, we were surprised to see an Obama ad next to the message boards that support former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.).
“Help elect Barack Obama President of the United States,” the ad, complete with a picture of the senator, said. And at the bottom, the ad read, “Paid for by Obama for America.”
The Obama campaign, however, does not appear to be targeting the Fredheads — despite any frustration it feels about Thompson’s delayed announcement.
“It’s an issue with keywords we link to through Google’s advertising contextual network,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in an e-mail. “We’re constantly reviewing where our online ads are posted, and they will no longer be posted up on this site.”
By Thursday, the ads were no longer on the site. Instead, website viewers could click on an ad for tombraider.gametrap.com .
— Sam Youngman
Public Citizen vs. bundlersThe watchdog group that became liberal bloggers’ search engine of choice during the 2004 race relaunched the effort Thursday for 2008.
Public Citizen, founded by one-time third-party candidate Ralph Nader, updated its WhiteHouseForSale.org website with nearly 1,900 bundlers’ identities and their candidates of choice. Those numbers will be updated over the coming months.
More than 230 of the listed bundlers, by the group’s count, are veterans of the 2004 campaign.
— Elana Schor |
