Getting Beyond "Gotcha!"

Jan. 12, 2007— -- "Gotcha" video is at it again, and this time the target is Mitt Romney. A video posted on YouTube this week of Romney's 1994 Senate race debate with Sen. Ted Kennedy shows a younger, slimmer -- and more liberal -- Romney defending his support for abortion and gay rights.

The posting prompted Romney, a presidential hopeful who hopes to court the Republican Party's socially conservative base, to once again declare publicly this week that "I was wrong on some issues back then."

The rising role of online video in politics has many pundits calling 2008 the "YouTube election." But it isn't just the "gotcha" videos that have made headlines -- candidates, social networking sites and grassroots activists have all scrambled to figure out the best ways to use the new medium.

In the emerging circus of online video, it's anybody's guess as to what will work best.

The Power of 'Gotcha'

Without a doubt, the online videos that made the biggest stir in the 2006 midterm elections were the "gotcha" videos -- highlighted by Sen. George Allen's infamous "macaca moment" in which he was caught on tape calling his Democratic opponent's Indian campaign worker the derogatory term -- which many say cost him the election for Virginia's Senate seat.

"You often see the negative versions of [new mediums] work first," says Peter Leyden, CEO of the New Politics Network, a progressive think tank that recently released a report titled "Viral Video in Politics."

Leyden likens the "macaca-moment" of 2006 to the "mushroom cloud moment" of the 1964 presidential race, when President Johnson's "Daisy" ad -- which featured a young girl picking flowers before a nuclear bomb exploded -- marked the seminal moment that signaled the power of the new medium.

Jeff Pulver, an Internet entrepreneur who blogs extensively about online video and politics, agrees. "The power goes to the 'gotchas,' because at the end of the day, truth matters," Pulver tells ABCNEWS.com.

In Romney's case, his changed views on abortion and gay rights have already been extensively reported in the media, but viewers of the YouTube video say there is something particularly powerful about watching Romney in his earlier days.

"Seeing the video really made him seem slippery," says Noah Sawyer, a Boston resident and recent graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government who sent the Romney clip (which had been viewed almost 30,000 times as of Friday) around to his friends. "He comes across as really pro-choice, even doubling down when Ted Kennedy attacks him. I wasn't going to vote for Romney anyway, but it made me feel he was either lying then or he's lying now."

But many presidential candidates have tried to get beyond the "gotcha" with their own versions of behind-the-scenes videos. John Edwards paid a team of bloggers to travel with him and document his presidential announcement tour and has also produced a series of "webisodes" that explore his campaign from behind the scenes. Edwards says the webisodes, which are uploaded to YouTube, are "based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll …"

Chuck Olsen, a Minneapolis-based video blogger for Rocketboom.com, was one of those whom Edwards paid to come along on the tour. Olsen got to hang out on the campaign plane, chat with Edwards, and even drink wine with the campaign staff after a town hall meeting in Iowa. He kept his camera rolling, and posted a dispatch on his Web site, MinnesotaStories.com

"I know I'm being used," says Olson, who openly questions whether he could have provided an unbiased perspective of the campaign. But he realizes the power of online video to hold candidates like Edwards accountable. "Candidates have to always be 'on,'" Olson says. "If they screw up, suddenly a lot of people will see it."

To the point: Despite his goal to get beyond his "Ken doll" image, Edwards' behind-the-scenes videos have to contend with another video on YouTube, one that shows Edwards combing his hair before a television interview -- for two minutes. Uploaded by someone not affiliated with the campaign and set the tune of the "West Side Story" song "I Feel Pretty," the clip has had almost 15,000 hits since it was uploaded to the site last November.

Trying to go Viral

One place many candidates are going to try to get their videos and content to go "viral" is the popular online social networking site, MySpace.com. Sens. John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama all have profiles on MySpace, as do Edwards and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

If the data on social networking sites are to be trusted, the move seems smart: According to Nielsen Netratings, MySpace users are three times more likely to interact with a public official or candidate online. And they're 48 percent more likely to view online video relating to politics or public affairs.

According to Jeff Berman, vice president for public affairs at MySpace, MySpace pages put up by political candidates have their real effect once other MySpace members link to or steal from their pages. The multiplier effect expands their reach and increases their legitimacy.

"It's like a campaign storefront," says Berman of the candidate's MySpace pages. "Their page is a hub for information and media to disseminate through the MySpace network."

Vilsack's campaign home page has a video blog, and has links to his MySpace, YouTube and Facebook pages.

"It's a medium that many people use, particularly younger voters," says Josh Earnest, Vilsack's communications director. The third person to add Vilsack to her list of "friends" was a Des Moines resident who ended up becoming an intern for the campaign, Earnest says.

For its part, MySpace is attempting to stimulate political discussion on its site at a user-generated level. This week, it started a competition called "My State of the Union" in which users upload their own video speeches expressing their feelings "about the state of American today."

Political celebrity judges -- including former Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist and former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta -- will choose the winners. Through Friday, more than 100 videos have been uploaded, Berman told ABCNEWS.com.

And over on YouTube, where grass roots campaigns seem to have the most success, a video post this week titled "The YouTube Get Out of Iraq Campaign" has been viewed more than 27,000 times and spurred more than 200 response videos.

Professional filmmakers have also embraced online video for their causes. Robert Greenwald, a documentary maker famous for his progressive "guerilla" documentaries like "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices," is starting a new endeavor called "Brave News Alerts" in which his production company will release video news alerts nationwide as a "progressive rallying cry," according to its Web site.

Cutting Through the Chatter

So how can a candidate cut through the chatter of "gotcha" videos, MySpace pages, grass roots campaigns and more polished pieces?

"The jury's out," says Leyden. "For now, people are going to try everything … it's going to be a wild space in the next two to five years."

Internet entrepreneur Pulver says that no matter what happens, candidates will have to build some kind of online video elements into their campaigns.

"Platforms like YouTube make it challenging to be seen and be heard," says Pulver, "But if you don't use them, you're going to be invisible."