Mysterious anti-Hillary ad on YouTube creates a stir

The ad is based on Apple's famous 1984 commercial.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Just who is ParkRidge47 -- the mystery figure who introduced an Internet political attack ad that has stirred the press and political junkies tuned into the early presidential campaign -- and what does the video maker have against Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton?
The political question of the week is the identity of the anonymous person who reworked the classic 1984 ad introducing the Apple Macintosh computer to the world into a biting attack piece against Clinton -- and posted it on the popular YouTube Web site.
The video portrays "Hillary 1984" as an ominous Big Brother figure while portraying her rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, as the symbol of a new generation. Obama's campaign maintains it had nothing to do with the video.
There are some clues to the identity of the person behind the sophisticated political remix of director Ridley Scott's original McIntosh computer ad -- a so-called video mash-up. Analysts have said the video is representative of the multiplying power and democracy of the Internet and is a harbinger of a brave new era of unauthorized "viral" political ads made by individuals working independently of campaigns and consultants.
Debuted March 5
The ad was first placed on the YouTube site March 5 by an anonymous poster signed "ParkRidge47," a signature that appears to be a clever jab at the New York senator, who was born in Chicago in 1947 and reared in nearby Park Ridge, Ill.
After the ad received more than 100,000 hits in two days, Micah Sifrey, editor of TechPresident.com, a Web site that tracks how the Internet is changing politics, sent an e-mail to the poster, asking for more information about how and why the ad was created.
ParkRidge47 wrote back, saying that the "Hillary 1984" ad, which urged Americans to "Vote Different," was inspired by Hollywood entertainment mogul David Geffen's public critique of Clinton -- and "Clinton's campaign bullying of donors and political operatives" in the wake of it, according to Sifrey's Web posting.
In the response to Sifrey, ParkRidge47 said that the idea for the ad "was simple and so was the execution. Make a bold statement about the Democratic primary race by culture jacking a famous commercial and replacing as few images as possible."
Sifrey noted in a telephone interview Monday that, after a story Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle and resulting coverage in the press, the ad had more than quadrupled its hits to 400,000 -- giving the pro-Obama message far more exposure than any other political ad or site by other presidential candidates on the Web.
Obama's response
Obama, asked about the video Monday on "Larry King Live" on CNN, said his campaign knew nothing about it until the ad popped up on the Web.
"In some ways, it's the democratization of the campaign process, but it's not something that we had anything to do with or were aware of and that, frankly, given what it looks like, we don't have the technical capacity to create something like this," Obama told King.
One possible reason its creator is staying silent for now: The ad could be a victim of its own success and raise potential questions of copyright infringement.
Steve Dowling, corporate spokesman for Apple reached Monday by the Chronicle, said he did not know who produced the political video and repeatedly declined to answer questions about the firm's reaction -- or whether it was considering legal action.
But E. Floyd Kvamme -- who helped bring the original "1984" ad to Super Bowl viewers when he was vice president of sales and marketing for Apple Computers -- said he wouldn't be surprised if the company took action.