By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 10, 2006; 7:54 AM

It starts off like a typical negative ad, with swelling music and pictures of John McCain: "Flip-Flopper? Yes. Waffler? Yes."

But then the Internet spot takes a strange turn: "Eh, whatever. He should still be president," the graphics say. "John McCain 2008. He's Not Hillary."

This is one of the 60,000 videos added each day to YouTube.com , a shoot-it-yourself Web site that has exploded in popularity over the past year. And while many of the most widely viewed videos are merely intended to entertain or titillate -- rants, parodies, pet tricks, soccer brawls, singing, dancing and booty shaking -- company executives say politics is on the rise.

The site's sixth most popular group -- as measured by the number of people who click to subscribe -- is titled "Bush Sucks," with 2,018 members and 741 videos. Also near the top is "Nedheads," with 841 members signing on to a group created by activists backing Ned Lamont in his Democratic primary race against Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.

While bloggers played a role in the last presidential election, most advertising and message delivery still comes from campaigns, political parties and interest groups with enough money to bankroll a television blitz. But the YouTube revolution -- which includes dozens of sites such as Google Video , Revver.com and Metacafe.com -- could turn that on its head.

If any teenager can put up a video for or against a candidate, and persuade other people to watch that video, the center of gravity could shift to masses of people with camcorders and passable computer skills. And if people increasingly distrust the mainstream media, they might be more receptive to messages created by ordinary folks.

"YouTube is a campaign game-changer, shifting the dynamics of how to reach voters and build intimate relationships," says Julie Supan, senior marketing director for the small, California-based firm, which by one measure now runs the 39th most popular Web site. "YouTube levels the playing field, allowing well-backed and less-known candidates to reach the same audience and share the same stage."

Even the seemingly simple act of posting footage of a politician's interview on "Meet the Press" or "The Daily Show" has a viral quality, because it can be seen by many more people than watched during a single broadcast.

The 18-month-old site, which makes its revenue from banner ads, is free for viewers and contributors. The company says 80 million videos are viewed each day. Each video, group or page is placed in easily searchable categories, and those who subscribe to the groups are automatically notified of new content.

The networks are just starting to awaken to the power of these citizen video sites. After feuding with YouTube for illegally showing a clip from "Saturday Night Live" earlier this year, NBC realized the power of such online promotion and recently struck a deal with the site to publicize its fall lineup. Hollywood studios are interested as well.

Contributors to YouTube seem to lean to the left. There are videos of verbal stumbles labeled "Stupid Bush" and "Bush Screwups," along with "President Bush Drunk," a bit on CBS's "Late Late Show" that slowed down a tape of the president so it appeared as if he were slurring his words. Another shows Bush, in his Texas days, extending his middle finger. (One positive video features a group called the Right Brothers singing "Bush Was Right.")

Any registered user can form a group, and the site includes one called "Support George Bush," which says, "Don't be afraid of your beliefs -- most campuses nationwide have a liberal bias anyway . . . as does the media." But it doesn't crack the top 100 in terms of membership, unlike "Bush Sucks," which is designed "for everyone who hates Bush and all his Republican cronies."

A video about Virginia's junior senator is titled "George Allen--R-Exxon." It turns out to be an old commercial slamming Allen's votes on energy by Democrat Harris Miller, who lost a primary bid to oppose Allen.

Not everything is serious business. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is razzed with a song parody called "Gay Wedding Bell Blues," to the tune of an old Fifth Dimension song: "I've heard your rants, I wish you'd quit / Just listen to you and hear your passion against gays / (Oh, but you're never gonna take my wedding day)."

And Rudy Giuliani would probably not choose to appear in drag, being nuzzled by Donald Trump, as he does in the video of a six-year-old press roast.

Democrats don't get a free ride on YouTube. While one supporter put up footage from "Imus in the Morning" on MSNBC with the title, "John Kerry goes on the offensive against the right wing smear machine," other videos were titled "Kerry's Lost Again" and "Senator 2 Face Kerry." And several people posted anti-Kerry commercials from the 2004 campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Former senator John Edwards has his own page, or "channel," but elsewhere on the site, someone has posted footage of Edwards in the makeup chair, titled "Pretty Boy John Edwards/Watch as the ambulance chaser pretties up for the camera."

Hillary Rodham Clinton gets skewered in such videos as "The Scariest Monster," "Hillary Clinton's Campaign Frauds," "Hillary's Plantation," "Hillary Goes Nuts" and "Ken Mehlman on Hillary's Anger!," reprising an ABC interview with the Republican Party chairman. A video by a draft-Clinton group -- which flips through images of previous presidents and ends with the former first lady -- has been seen just 351 times, compared with 5,404 views for a draft-McCain video.

Politicians are increasingly joining the party. Former Virginia governor Mark Warner, a Democrat who is weighing a White House bid, has posted a two-minute video, which has been viewed 426 times. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has a channel featuring C-SPAN clips of various Democrats. (Readers can offer comments; one called her "the biggest windbag in the House.") Krissy Keefer, a Green Party candidate challenging Pelosi, also has a channel, which includes a taped endorsement by a San Francisco street poet named Diamond Dave.

YouTube does not verify the identities of the posters. Supan says political campaigns often put up their ads and speeches under unknown screen names but have begun doing so more openly. (Of course, little-known operatives can also post videos mocking opposing candidates.) Television networks have the right to demand that their clips be deleted when posted by people who have no rights to the material, but Supan says such complaints are declining as the major broadcast and cable networks -- all of which have held talks with YouTube -- have recognized the importance of not alienating their viewers.

While the site's amateur contributions range from nasty to uplifting to downright silly, they also restore a measure of fun to politics -- precisely what might appeal to younger people turned off by traditional speeches, ads and rhetoric. Supan says the modest viewing levels for politicians' pages reflect the pedestrian content of standard speeches and ads -- and will likely remain that way until they come up with behind-the-scenes footage or other eye-catching fare.

"At the end of the day," she says, "it's all about entertaining."

By the way, it's (almost) official: Dan Rather has a new job .

Can you think of another instance where a local primary candidate no one had ever heard of suddenly got national exposure in a televised debate, the way Ned Lamont did on MSNBC last week? Maybe Rick Lazio when he ran against Hillary, but at least he'd been a congressman, not a Greenwich selectman. Anyway, lots of chatter about the Joe/Ned faceoff. David Frum tries to dissect the liberal anger at Lieberman:

"Have you been following the left blogosphere's reaction to the Lamont-Lieberman primary fight in Connecticut? The poisonous hatred directed at Lieberman has passed beyond the point of the political into the realm of the psychological. They hate him for keeping his Senate seat in 2000 rather than going down with the ship. They hate him for his modulated voice. They hate him for his attention to ethical issues. They hate him for what they themselves at any other time would have regarded as his virtues as for his political unorthodoxies.

"It's a hatred reinforced by repetition and intensified by echo-chamber unanimity. It's a hatred ungrounded upon any clear foundation of reason, undirected to any political purpose. I can't remember ever seeing anything like such an angry excommunication of one Republican by others in my political lifetime - although perhaps the hatred felt by the Goldwaterites for Nelson Rockefeller comes close. But there at least the two factions were separated by real ideological disagreements. Not so in Lieberman's case. He remains one of the most liberal members of the Senate: The American Conservative Union rates him as more liberal than Debbie Stabenow, more liberal than Barbara Boxer, more liberal than Hillary Clinton, more liberal than Russell Feingold - and equally liberal as John Kerry and Barak Obama. Rating is not an exact science of course, but you get the idea.

"I'm inclined to think that Lieberman will squeak through the August primary, but what do I know? But I am sure of this: the outburst against Lieberman reveals something very real, very important, and very ugly about today's Democratic party. And whether he wins or loses, it reminds us of the reasons why - and the how - that party has rendered itself unfit for and incapable of wielding political power."

Lieberman must be the right's favorite Democrat, for the NYT's David Brooks is also weighing in on his behalf:

"What's happening to Lieberman can only be described as a liberal inquisition. Whether you agree with him or not, he is transparently the most kind-hearted and well-intentioned of men. But over the past few years he has been subjected to a vituperation campaign that only experts in moral manias and mob psychology are really fit to explain. I can't reproduce the typical assaults that have been directed at him over the Internet, because they are so laced with profanity and ugliness, but they are ginned up by ideological masseurs who salve their followers' psychic wounds by arousing their rage at objects of mutual hate."

The New Republic's Michael Crowley sees a new Joltin' Joe:

"Who knew Joe Lieberman could be so tough? After weeks of being on the defensive, Lieberman whacked Lamont repeatedly. At one point, he accused Lamont of insincerely exploiting the Iraq war politically to win a Senate seat. (Two other prevailing themes from Lieberman: that Lamont frequently voted with Republicans as a city councilor; and the notion that Lamont has a squishy, inconsistent and thin record, summarized by the refrain, 'Who is Ned Lamont?') Lamont got some licks in, to be sure, tormenting Lieberman over his potential independent candidacy, ripping his vote for that (awful) 2005 congressional energy bill, and, after one Lieberman interruption, retorting (somewhat awkwardly)'"We're not on Fox News, sir.'

"Still, Lamont's attacks are mostly familiar by now. Lieberman's were a bracing departure from his typically Solomonic style. A key question is how Democrats will perceive such tough tactics from a senator known around Connecticut (my native state) as a consummate nice guy.

"But mainly what I'm wondering is: Where was this Joe Lieberman back when the stakes were really high?"

Maybe the stakes are never so high as when your job is on the line.

Arianna doesn't want her California pals helping Connecticut's senior senator:

"What the hell is Barbara Boxer thinking?

"From the run up to Shock and Awe to last month's flurry of thrust-and-parry resolutions on Iraq, the junior senator from California has been one of the most consistent and vocal critics of the war. She voted no on the war in 2002 and co-sponsored the latest Kerry bill calling for our troops to be withdrawn by July 2007...

"So what is she doing heading up to Connecticut to stump for pro-war Joe Lieberman and against his anti-war challenger Ned Lamont?

"After all, Tailgunner Joe isn't just one of the staunchest supporters of the war, he's repeatedly and steadfastly spoken out against those who oppose it.

"'Retreat and defeat,' he said in speaking against the Kerry and Levin withdrawal plans on the floor of the Senate, 'would be terrible for the safety and security of the American people.' Indeed he was one of only six Democrats to vote against the withdrawal-lite Levin amendment. . . .

"Look, I understand the you-scratch-my-primary-run-and-I'll-scratch-yours ethos of sticking up for your fellow Senator -- what Jane Hamsher called 'the incumbency protection racket.' And this isn't a progressive purity test, accompanied by the expectation of lockstep liberalism. This isn't about Lieberman's GOP-friendly positions on tax cuts, affirmative action, the bankruptcy bill, the energy bill, the privatization of some parts of Social Security, and the right to question the president.

"At its core, the Lieberman-Lamont contest is about the war on Iraq. So how can Boxer strap on her Senate buddy blinders and jettison her deeply held beliefs on the defining issue of our time?"

Some online chatter about this New York Times piece on the state's highest court not allowing same-sex marriage:

The "court ruling against gay marriage was more than a legal rebuke, then -- it came as a shocking insult to gay rights groups. Leaders said they were stunned by both the rejection and the decision's language, which they saw as expressing more concern for the children of heterosexual couples than for the children of gay couples. They also took exception to the ruling's description of homosexuality as a preference rather than an orientation."

Andrew Sullivan gives the article two thumbs down:

"I have to say that this 'news analysis' in the NYT of the court decisions in New York and Georgia is one of the dumbest pieces of journalism I have read in a very long time. 'For Gay Rights Movement, A Key Setback'? In some ways, I think the New York Court of Appeals decision will help, rather than hurt, the cause of marriage equality in the long run. Why? Because it will force the issue into legislatures, where it is best tackled, and where we will eventually win, and in one case, California, have already won. The courts have already done their job - in forcing this issue into the national consciousness, highlighting the grave injustice, correcting it in one state out of fifty, and allowing us to make such great headway in persuading people of our cause.

"The basic argument made by the New York court is also not inherently damaging to the gay case. It's simply saying that the law is not on its face irrational (although it's deeply unpersuasive), and so the issue is for the legislature, not the court. What the New York court is essentially saying is: you have a case. You just made it to the wrong guys. Talk to the legislature."

In fairness, though, the Times quoted the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force as calling the decision "callous and insulting to gay people."

Lots of people spanking the senior senator from Delaware, but not Michelle Malkin :

"Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is over Joe Biden's remark about Indian-Americans operating 7-11 and Dunkin' Donut stores in Delaware. There are plenty of reasons to roll your eyes when Biden opens his mouth. This doesn't make my list. It is a fact that a lot of Indian-Americans own such franchises (which screen employees to ensure they are here legally, by the way). No reason to get the vapors over his clumsy little crack making that basic observation.

"Goes without saying, of course, that if the comments came out of a GOP senator's mouth, the NYTimes and company would go ape."