MittTube 2

Posted by: Ion | April 16th, 2007 · 12:36 PM

David All takes a look at the comment section of the BlogPI YouChoose post (discussed earlier here) and makes a find. Apparently Stephen Smith was all over the thing:

What I find most interesting is that Mitt’s eGuy, Stephen Smith, left a comment on Beutler’s post which tells me two things: 1. Smith is paying attention to what people are saying about his guy. 2. Smith has been given “permission” to be a “spokesblogger” for the campaign.
(DavidAllGroup)

Jumping back to BlogPI, he’s right. Here’s what Smith said:

William, an impressive summary. You’re right … I have watched them all but I’m glad I’m not the only one. Make sure to watch for Governor Romney’s responses by the end of his week in the spotlight.
(BlogPI: Comments)

Pretty funny. Particularly given that William Beutler rather explicitly suggested that the responses were policed for content by YouTube. A challenge left uncontested by Smith, despite evident opportunity. Also consider these remarks by Smith, more officially in the NYT’s Caucus, about the alleged risks of the YouTube initiative:

“Certainly there’s always risk in trying something new, in trying something innovative,” said Stephen Smith, the Romney campaign’s director of online communications. “It does take a little bit of boldness, but that’s what the governor has always been about and that’s what we’re trying to reflect on the campaign.”
(NYT)

What risk? That is, if indeed the responses were edited to remove the obscenities, UFOs, 9-11 conspiracies and the like. Just taking a second glance at some (oh, the horror) they do seem to be curiously absent anything really hostile for YouTube. If you’ve ever glanced at a YouTube comment section on any subject, you know that’s highly unusual. (edit) In Smith’s defense, the text response section is pretty fierce.

Sarah Wheaton, in the above NYT post, also points out that Smith has Mitt rumbling around Yahoo!Answers. Mitt takes a slightly different approach here naturally, shaping response feedback on a specific item. I’m much fonder of the responses here too, as they’re more democratic than the vids. Filled as they are with aggressive dissents and fringe policy advocacy.

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