March 17, 2008
Sound Bite That Has Some Teeth
A Barack Obama supporter quizzed on the street at the Hollywood Democratic Debate has drawn a million views on YouTube. The New York Times reports.
"Derrick Ashong, a 32-year-old musician, carrying a sign for Barack Obama outside the theater On Jan. 31, was asked by a series of skeptical and very pointed questions by a cameraman filming the event.
“So why are you for Obama?” he asked. It was clear from his approach that he expected a dimwitted answer, an expectation that he was about to talk to another acolyte smitten by Senator Obama’s rock star persona.
But, as it turned out, Mr. Ashong, who was raised in Ghana and elsewhere, was glad to be asked. For almost six minutes — about a century in broadcast television years — Mr. Ashong, who has an immigrant’s love of democracy and the furrowed brow of a Brookings fellow, held forth on universal health care, single-payer approaches and public-private partnerships.
There's more... On Feb. 2, the interview of Mr. Ashong was posted on a YouTube channel called “The Latest Controversy,” where supporters of both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Obama are asked very aggressively to justify their choice of candidates.
The video blew up, drawing more than 850,000 views. And after that huge response to his policy analysis, Mr. Ashong decided to double down and explain the emotional component of his support for Obama in a follow-up video that was posted Feb. 11 and received 300,000 views."
Read full article.
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