John McCain's Other YouTube Problem

"McCain's Achilles' heel has always been his policy oscillations. His limber "principles" allow him to sweep from one side of an issue to another; they are generally lauded as badges of maverickness in the press and recognized by the reality-based community largely as panderiffic moments of Washington as usual. And until now, because the traditional media has refused to properly cover these flip-flops and distortions, McCain has been able to get away with saying one thing and doing another, or voting one way and soon thereafter voting another. But how will the real McCain -- whiplash policy McCain -- play out in 2008, where video and blogs will be able to juxtapose his stances and statements in such a manner that shatters the myth of McCain as an 'honest broker'?"

If there were any question, yesterday's speech in New Orleans makes clear that McCain has another YouTube problem. In the digital era, Americans turn to the internet to receive information about their candidates. It's not enough to have a nice little soundbite quoted in the press. No, the modern voter has the ability to seek out context and primary sources.

So no matter how good Harold Ford may think McCain's speech was yesteday, no matter how sharp a line may be when quoted in the morning papers, the fact remains that the unfiltered McCain is painful to watch on video. He's awkward, like a teenage boy forced to take ballroom dancing classes because his mom is obsessed with Dancing with the Stars. He's condescending, as if he were born with the egos of a thousand Friedmans. He's smug, like the kiss-ass co-worker who crows about how much the boss loves him. And he's downright boring, with the exception of when he allows himself to raise his voice and pound his fist, and then we have before us all the captivating sound and fury of a sparking and walking wind-up godzilla toy.

Perhaps that explains why the McCain camp is so slow (reluctant?) to include videos of the candidate's speeches on his website. If you headed to johnmccain.com to check out his speech, you're encouraged to "READ THE SPEECH." Click on "speeches" and you're greeting with a bland page of links, linking you to -- you guessed it -- the text of his speeches. His "multimedia" page is filled with his ads (which, for the most part, spare us the agony of having McCain speaking on the screen for more than a few seconds at a time).

Contrast this with Barack Obama, who has available on his website for every voter to see every major speech he has made (including yesterday's).

The internet is a visual medium, and as voters increasingly turn to that medium to help them make their choice in the fall, McCain's other YouTube problem will become a liability. Because no matter how much his campaign tries to avoid making available video of his speeches or tries to creatively edit them so McCain doesn't look like the William Hung of Political Idol, if there's a YouTube, there's a way for American voters to see the real McCain in all his stilted glory.

Source: By Georgia10 of Daily Kos