Which video gives the true story? Four years after YouTube revolutionized American politics, two videos of Richard Blumenthal signal a new role for the campaign attack clip — from accountability tool to out-of-context smear job.
Both videos came to public attention this week.
And they were the same video — only one was longer. To some observers, that made all the difference.
The videos captured a speech Blumenthal — the state’s attorney general, and now the leading Democratic candidate for Connecticut’s open U.S. Senate seat — made in 2008 to a group of war veterans in Norwalk.
The first video was exactly the kind of “gotcha” video that has come to haunt political candidates since 2006, when YouTube clips started going viral and instantly altering major political campaigns.
The first video showed Blumenthal claiming “I served in Vietnam.” He didn’t serve in Vietnam. Instead he served here in the U.S., in the marine reserves, during the Vietnam War. The campaign of a Republican opponent in this year’s Senate race, Linda McMahon, got ahold of that incriminating video. It apparently sent the video to the New York Times, which ran with it in a devastating front-page attack story against Blumenthal.
That story, released late Monday night, instantly changed the dynamics of the race, which Blumenthal had been leading by more than 20 points. It’s now a toss-up. (Click here for coverage of the fallout.) The story revolved around the video, which was actually a clip of part of Blumenthal’s 2008 speech, running just under a minute. (Click on the play arrow at left to watch that version.)
Meanwhile, the second video appeared later in the week — on, of all places, Linda McMahon’s website. It shows the same 2008 speech by Blumenthal. But it shows the whole speech. It runs 5 minutes and 45 seconds. It includes Blumenthal stating that he served in the military “during the Vietnam era.”
Does that absolve him of the charge of fudging his war record? Is he still guilty of hinting that he in fact risked his life in southeast Asia?
Pundits, editorial writers, campaign spinmeisters are debating that question. McMahon spokesman Ed Patru called the statement seen just in the longer video “at best ambiguous. Had he said, ‘I served in the Marines Corps reserves,’ that would have been complete and accurate and truthful.”
Click here for Colin McEnroe’s survey on the question; click here for Sharon Bass’s CTNews Junkie account of how Blumenthal presented his military record in an interview days before the Times expose hit.
Separate from that question of opinion is the emergence of a new campaign development that this year’s Connecticut Senate race is helping to pioneer: the YouTube clip as faux smoking gun.
Allen’s Slur
A 2006 campaign video in Virginia introduced the YouTube video as true smoking gun, and startled the American political world.
The video captured Republican U.S. Senator George Allen calling a volunteer for his Democratic opponent “Macaca” at a campaign event. The term is an anti-Indian slur; the volunteer was of Indian descent. Allen lost the election to Democrat James Webb. The video (at left) was believed to be the turning point in the campaign.
(Some people date the emergence of the YouTube effect to 2004, when Howard Dean’s infamous “scream” became instant fodder for video mash-ups.)
Allen didn’t deny making the comment. He offered explanations, and an apology. Meanwhile, millions watched the video.
Obama’s “Gun-Clingers”
Needless to say, every major campaign was soon following opponents at every stop to try to capture incriminating moments on video to post on YouTube.
Then, in April of 2008, candidates learned they didn’t have to watch their words only in public events. Private campaign events became potential YouTube minefields, too, as for presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Obama was speaking to an invitation-only group of supporters at a San Francisco fund-raiser for his presidential campaign. The event was closed to the press. He offered an explanation of conservative white ethnic voters — an explanation that could sell well to a private coastal liberal audience. It may well have been the last tailored-to-an-audience speech a candidate would give within earshot of anyone else. Here’s what Obama said:
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
One of the sympathetic pro-Obama audience members was a woman named Mayhill Fowler. She was a teacher who was beginning to dabble in “citizen journalism.” She had a gig with the Huffington Post. She recorded the speech. She then struggled with whether to post the story, since it would hurt her candidate. In the end, she decided she had a responsibility to the truth. She posted this story. The video version (click above to watch it) went viral. Obama’s campaign immediately hit a crisis; he could very well have lost to Hillary Clinton in the primaries based on that video. Republicans had a field day, and continued rallying their base around that video through November.
Obama ended up surviving the incident. But YouTube had once again altered the rules: Even private fundraisers were no longer exempt from the 24/7 blogosphere.
Still, Obama didn’t fight back against the video. He didn’t attack the reporter. He tried to explain and make amends.
In Case You “Missed” It
YouTube is again making itself felt in the hard-fought race this year for Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seat. But this time the veracity — or at least the context — of the tool is less clear.
Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling exec who has promised to pour $50 million of her own money into a quest for the seat, has so far used the web as her main press strategy. She issues several press releases on a typical day. But almost never do they announce an event where reporters can watch her in action or ask her questions (or take video). Instead, they report on events past — or just as often they seek to interest reporters in unflattering news about her opponents.
Those emailed releases are headlined “ICYMI,” shorthand for “In Case You Missed It.” The campaign of her opponent for the Republican nomination, former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, then began issuing his own emailed “ICYMI” press broadsides about unflattering news about McMahon and Blumenthal (the Democratic candidate).
McMahon’s team has clearly been using YouTube as a search engine. One early-campaign ICYMI release referred reporters to a YouTube video of Simmons discussing health care reform. The release claimed that it showed that Simmons was open to putting a government-run “public option” plan “on the table” in negotiations over a reform bill. The point of the release: This smoking gun proves Simmons isn’t a true conservative, and thus unworthy of votes in a Republican primary.
The video first appeared in the New Haven Independent. It was of a short interview with Simmons after an October 2009 Yale-New Haven Smilow Cancer Hospital ribbon-cutting event.
In the video (click on the play arrow to watch it), Simmons did say all proposals should be “on the table.” So technically the McMahon release was correct.
However, that left out the context. In fact, Simmons was saying the opposite. He was arguing that tort reform and other conservative health reform priorities should be put “on the table.” He was asked if that means he’d support having a public option “on the table,” too. His response: It’s already on the table, so conservatives ideas should be put on the table, too.
If that marked a new use of the YouTube “gotcha” campaign tool, at least the whole video remained intact. So people could judge for themselves.
The two Blumenthal videos this week took the new tactic further. As with the Simmons video, the first, under-one-minute version ended up leaving out crucial context. But now it also left out essential aspects of the full video, too, perhaps changing the reality. The short version led to a charge that Blumenthal left out the real story of where and how he served in Vietnam. The longer version showed that he clearly stated that he served in the reserves.
Pro- and anti-Blumenthal observers can argue whether that was enough. Whether he was leaving out the important fact that he didn’t actually serve in Vietnam. Whether a review of his other public statements shows that he consistently misleads people, or consistently paints an accurate picture.
In either case, a threshold was crossed. And American political campaigns may never be the same.
Or, perhaps, the media may be more careful about the videos on which it bases news articles.
Another great article from the Independent.