In campaigns, hits on YouTube don’t equal votes

July 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala.

A video of a tough- talking, rifle-toting Alabama candidate who rides up on a horse generated 1.7 million hits on YouTube with one of one of the most-clicked Internet ads of the campaign season.

Then he lost — dead last in a three-way race for agriculture commissioner.

The posting of politically catchy video ads on the Internet at little expense to the candidates is a growing phenomenon. But already, several candidates, such as Dale Peterson in Alabama, have found that gaining national fame or infamy going viral doesn’t necessarily translate into votes and victory at the polls.

“There is no one candidate you can point to who has won solely by being a YouTube or Internet hit,” said Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group in Arlington, Va.

Tracey describes Alabama’s just-concluded primary as “the petri dish” for Internet campaigning because so many ads became huge hits, often as a result of outraged reaction from around the country to their bluntly right-wing messages.

“If you are not careful, these simply become ways for political junkies to be amused,” said Colin Delany, chief editor of Epolitics.com and an expert in online campaigning.

Peterson may have gotten 1.7 million hits on YouTube, but he only got 117,091 votes in the June 1 Republican primary.

But the videos, at little cost, can generate lots of talk and often laughs. Bloggers, political junkies and others made a hit out of an Internet-only video posted by Republican Sen. John McCain’s campaign in Arizona.

The over-the-top spoof says primary opponent J.D. Hayworth is committed to exposing the secret Kenyan birthplace of President Barack Obama, preventing the legalization of “man-horse marriage,” and convincing voters that “Dracula is real.”

The primary winner will be determined Aug. 24.

Outrageous Internet spots are already turning up for the general election in November. Shortly after Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in May, the National Republican Senatorial Committee posted a sexually suggestive attack ad featuring the shirtless candidate with one hand on his belly and one below the screen.

The ad drew complaints about decency and copyright infringement and was taken down by YouTube after 40,000 hits.

Karen Cartee, an expert in political communications at the University of Alabama, says some Internet sensations are so attention grabbing that people can’t look away, but she questions their effectiveness on election day.

She said many ad viewers on YouTube are young people who aren’t likely to vote in a primary even if they live in the same state as the candidate or they are political ideologues who have already made up their minds about a race. Busy working voters don’t have the time to noodle around looking at videos.

“Internet ads are not nearly as effective as direct mail, broadcast, radio or print,” said Cartee, who has co-authored several books on campaigning.

A study recently released by the Pew Research Center found that in 2009, 30 percent of adult Internet users said they had watched or downloaded a political video online. The study found the heaviest users were 18- to 29-years-old.

In Peterson’s online video, he rides a horse, wears a white hat, totes a rifle and shoots from the lip. To hear him tell it, “thugs and criminals” are running some state programs and one of his opponents in the race is bragging on Facebook about taking illegal campaign contributions.