As the race for the 2008 nominations proceed apace, candidates from both parties are using—or attempting to use—YouTube to connect with voters across the country. YouTube, the popular video-sharing website that receives more than 40 million unique  U.S. visitors per month, has become a prime battleground in the race for the presidency where candidates make their pitches to voters and voters can respond directly to the candidates. Iowa Independent recently talked with Steve Grove, YouTube’s News and Politics Editor about the candidates’ profiles, the birth of a viral video and the democratizing force that YouTube hopes to be.

Grove declined to say which candidates had the best YouTube profiles, but said that “the mere fact that candidates are on YouTube” means that campaigns are changing “to get their message out and to interact with voters in the 21st century.”

Every announced candidate has a YouTube account, except for former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson. It is somewhat difficult to gauge users' interest in the candidates. Each candidate channel or profile provides the number of subscribers, channel views and videos watched. A subscriber is a user who has signed up to receive videos whenever the candidate uploads a new video; subscribing signifies some level of commitment to and interest in the candidate.

 

At the time of writing, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama had 6,566 subscribers, the most of any Democratic candidate, followed by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton with 4,054, former Sen. John Edwards with 2,949, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich with 1,965 and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel with 1,259. On the GOP side, Texas Congressman Ron Paul has 16,525 subscribers, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 2219 subscribers, Giuliani with 1512, McCain with 1352 and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 596.

 

Grove said that while subscriptions are important, examining the number of views a video receives indicates whether the video is effective. “That means people are actually watching your videos,” he said. But getting users to respond to videos is the top prize. “The highest bar of success is video response … the most active and engaging thing a user can do,” he said. “The big lesson is it’s a two way medium. It’s not just a shrunken television screen. It’s actually a way to engage and interact and hear back from voters.”

 

YouTube is actively reaching encourage political involvement among its users. As YouTube’s News and Politics Editor, Grove hosts a channel called CitizenTube, whose goal is “to highlight and support user-generated political content on YouTube,” he said. While he creates some content like interviewing candidates, CitizenTube is mostly about connecting people, “The idea of educating, empowering and connecting voters and candidates with each other,” Grove said. As part of CitizenTube, the website sponsors a program called “You Choose,” which allows a different candidate each week to address and interact with YouTube users. Duncan Hunter used the platform to ask YouTube users about their heroes. Hillary Clinton encouraged people to suggest a theme song for her campaign. “It was a unique, fun project that got people engaged,” Grove said. Indeed. It generated extensive media coverage and more than 500,000 video views after just a few days.

 

YouTube is also co-sponsoring a Democratic presidential debate in July and a Republican debate in September with CNN. YouTube users will submit questions (in video form), and CNN will select which videos to use. “For the first time in the history of presidential debates, voters from around the country will be able to ask the future president of the United States a question in video form and hear the answer,” said Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder of YouTube in a statement.

 

But YouTube may also influence the 2008 campaigns in a less predictable fashion. Campaign operatives anxiously await—or fear—the next "Macaca moment", an instance where a candidate’s error gets caught on tape and shared with the world. (In the 2006 Virginia Senate race, Republican George Allen was videotaped using a derogatory slur—Macaca—and when the video went on YouTube it went "viral", spreading across the web and eventually the nation. Grove recently called the Obama:Apple::Clinton:IBM video the first viral video of the campaign; to this date, it has been viewed more than 3 million times. What makes a video viral is harder to explain. “There is no secret sauce,” Grove said. “Any piece of content, a video that taps into a sentiment or a feeling that’s out there but isn’t being currently expressed has a better chance of bubbling up to the top.”

 

David All, a GOP media consultant recently posted his tips to campaigns on how to use YouTube and avoid being sunk in the event of a "Macaca moment". Grove said that while he believes YouTube has helped increase transparency in politics, he said that he hoped it would go “beyond the gotcha moments” and toward “a more authentic political dialogue.” YouTube videos might be able to “strip away some of the spin,” he said. “Both candidates and voters are thirsting for it.”

Grove called YouTube “a tremendously democratizing force in politics” that “flattens out the dialogue.” It is “giving power to people,” he said. “And it’s giving candidates and voters and issue groups all a chance to create a lot of different content about and connect with each other.”