Politician Gravel, YouTube star

By now, we've all heard about the ways political candidates have used the Web to raise money or connect with voters. But former presidential candidate Mike Gravel turned viral Web marketing into an art form this year.

Long-shot Gravel, a former Democratic senator from Alaska who ran unsuccessfully for both the Democratic and Libertarian nominations this year, used YouTube to reach hundreds of thousands of potential voters, although the YouTube views didn't translate into votes.

Earlier this year, Gravel teamed up with political parody Web site, BarelyPolitical.com for a series of videos. (Warning: Many Barely Political videos contain scantily dressed women, swearing and humor that might not go over well in a work setting.)

That's in addition to more than 100 videos the Gravel campaign posted on YouTube.

Using YouTube isn't particularly unusual for candidates -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign has posted more than 1,100 videos on YouTube. Videos from Obama supporters, including musician will.i.am's "Yes, We Can" riff on an Obama speech have also proved popular. (

By the way, Barely Political created a spoof of that video, "No, You Can't," targeting Republican president candidate John McCain).

But Gravel took the YouTube thing to a new level in partnering with the often racy and raunchy Barely Political in a series of videos. Barely Political, which introduced Obama Girl (singing, "I've got a crush on Obama") to the world, filmed a video featuring Gravel attempting to convert Obama Girl, Amber Lee Ettinger, to his side. That video, posted to YouTube on May 7, features the 78-year-old Gravel singing to Ettinger and dancing to a hip-hop song.

That first video has generated more than 400,000 views for Barely Political, and since then, the Web site has featured Gravel in five more videos, including outtakes of the original Obama Girl collaboration, with combined views of more than 500,000. "The young people have made me a star on the Internet," Gravel said.

The Barely Political videos, along with a pair of rather obtuse videos featuring Gravel by the Bilinsi Media Partnership, helped raise name recognition, Gravel said. Before YouTube, Gravel was probably best known as an Alaskan senator who entered the secret documents about the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record in 1971.

The YouTube videos were important to Gravel's campaign because "our resources were extremely meager," he said. "Obviously, I realized that developing visibility was the key, and I couldn't do it in a conventional fashion."

The Barely Political videos were mostly for laughs, although the first one was filmed when he was still a presidential candidate and in need of publicity, he said. "That was hilarious to spend a day with an attractive young lady, joshing around," Gravel said. "It was fun."

Barely Political creator Ben Relles said Los Angeles director Joe Sabia approached the site about doing videos with Gravel. Barely Political "loved that Mike Gravel was so innovative online during the election," Relles said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.